


Bloom

by mihomi98



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-14
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2018-09-17 09:07:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 51,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9314819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mihomi98/pseuds/mihomi98
Summary: When Grantaire Partridge's daughter, Molly , home from college, he thinks that the biggest secret he will have to keep from her is that her mother, Eponine, and he got a divorce without alerting their children. When it turns out that Molly is seven months pregnant, though, and that she's brought home a handsome friend from college, Grantaire learns that sometimes, it's harder to let love bloom and show others your emotions than it is to keep it a secret from everyone else.For Enjolras Cauthers, falling in love with Molly's father was never in his five-year-plan, but once they begin spending time together, falling for Grantaire isn't up to Enjolras anymore. It's all in fate's hands.





	

 

 

 

 

 

1

 

Clients really sucked sometimes.

Grantaire flipped his phone back and forth in his hand, glancing out the window at his most recent piece of real estate. His clients were late, again. He didn’t know if it was him or not, but for the last several months, every client refused to be on time. Sometimes it was just by a few minutes, a quarter of an hour at most, but this? Almost an hour late? Grantaire didn’t know if this deal with worth it.

Sighing, Grantaire got out of his car and walked over to the “For Sale” sign, straightening it out from where the wind had knocked it over a few minutes previously. Once it was straight, he stared at it, looking at the fake smile and hordes of makeup that he was wearing in the photo to make himself more presentable. His dark-brown hair had been coiffed by one of his secretary’s friends, and his amber eyes sparkled beneath the fluorescent lights.

When he heard a car slam somewhere to his left, he turned around, wondering if his clients had finally decided to show up. Sure enough, an attractive African American man and his Adonis-like partner were arguing and making their way towards the house, their hands full with a baby carrier and a little boy who couldn’t be any older than three or four. The darker man kept sending the other man looks of irritation, and picked up the little boy before quickening his steps towards Grantaire. “I’m so sorr―”

“You must be Anthony and Elijah,” Grantaire interrupted, giving the couple a smile before winking at the darker man to show that them being late was all right, or at least as all right as Grantaire could pretend it was.

The man nodded, and he swallowed thickly before putting the little boy down and holding out his hand. “I’m Anthony, and these,” he said, gesturing to the little boy and the baby carrier that Elijah was holding, “are our children, Remy and Melanie.”

Grantaire shook Anthony’s hand before squatting down in front of Remy. He gave him a big smile, and reached out to ruffle his hair. “If it’s okay with your daddies, I bet I have a piece of candy in my car that I can give to you.”

Remy’s face lit up, and he spun around to face Elijah with pleading eyes. “Please, daddy, can I have a candy?”

Elijah shrugged, and glanced over at his partner before looking back at the child. “If it’s okay with Papa, it’s fine by me.

Remy nodded before turning to his other father. “Please, Papa? I’ll be good, I promise.”

Anthony snorted before nodding. “Like you don’t say that all the time,” he teased. Remy’s face fell. Anthony rolled his eyes before reaching out and flicking his son on the forehead playfully.

“All right, fine, go right ahead.”

“Yeah!”

Grantaire nodded, smiling at Remy again. “Let me go get it for you, I will be right back.” He turned on his heel and walked towards the car, opening the door on the passenger side and opening the glove compartment. Sure enough, there was a Halloween-sized bag of candy hidden in there. He took a handful before straightening back up and closing the car, turning to go back over to the house.

Grantaire handed Remy a couple of pieces before turning to Anthony and Elijah and offering them some. They each took a piece. Grantaire took a piece for himself before sliding the remainder into his pocket. He grabbed the keys off his belt loop and turned toward the house, heading up the stairs to the front door. He unlocked it and opened the door before turning back around and smiling at the family. “Let’s start, shall we?”

Anthony and Elijah walked up the stairs to the door, and stepped in. Before Grantaire could follow, though, his phone began to ring. He pulled it out of his pocket, making a face when he saw that it was Eponine calling. She probably wanted to hear about the tour of the house which, by all intents and purposes, should have been finished by now.

Grantaire cleared his throat and turned towards the couple apologetically. “I’m sorry, but I have to take this call, it’s my wife. Take a look around the living room and the kitchen, okay? I’ll be right back.”

When Anthony and Elijah nodded, Grantaire stepped back out of the house and clicked the “answer” button on his phone. “Hi, honey, I’m still with that client, so I can’t really talk right now.”

“Oh? Another latecomer?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, never mind then. I was going to see if you could pick Kieran up from soccer practice at five-thirty so that I could finish cleaning up the house, but I suppose I can just do it.”

Grantaire began to shake his head before remembering that Eponine couldn't see him. “No, you keep cleaning, I can pick her up, no worries.” He paused before asking, “Honey, do you really think it's necessary to clean just for Molly's homecoming? She did spend eighteen years living in our mess, you know.”

Grantaire swore that he could hear Eponine roll her eyes through the phone. “Yes, yes, I know. I _did_ give birth to her.” She went quiet for a few seconds. “It's the first time she's been home from school since Christmas, and I just want it to be nice for her to come home to. It's the last summer we have with her before she stays up in Oregon full-time. Besides, she called me a half-hour ago and told me that she's bringing a friend home to stay with us for until August.”

Ah. So _there_ was the real reason for why Eponine was so determined to make the four-bedroom house pristine. “Oh? Anyone I'd know?”

“No, surprisingly. I thought maybe she was bring Nolie or Jaquie, but she said it's some girl named Enjica? Or Enjamine? I don't know.”

“It's not like Molly to just bring a stranger home to us. Maybe this girl is someone special.” If he had been with his wife in person, he would have waggled his eyebrows, but as he wasn't, he had to settle for chuckling lightly. It had been an on-going conversation between Eponine and him about whether Molly was gay or not. She had never admitted to it, but Eponine had overheard some phone conversations at Christmas with someone named “Kelly” that were more vulgar than not.

Eponine laughed back. “Well, then I will have to make the house even cleaner, won't I?”

“That's all on you, dear. I need to get back to showing the house, but do you want Kieran and me to pick up dinner?”

“Please.”

“Okay. Bye, Eponine.” Grantaire pulled his phone away from his ear and clicked it off before sliding it back into his pocket and turning towards the house. He went inside and into the living room, where Anthony and Elijah were marveling at the molding around the fireplace. “I'm so sorry about that.”

Anthony shook his head. “No worries, man. If anyone should be apologizing it's us, since we were so late.” He shot Elijah a look.

“Shall we continue on with the rest of the house?”

“Hold on a sec.” This time it was Elijah who spoke, and he pulled out his phone before crouching down in front of Remy, who was sitting on one of the show-couches and swinging his feet. He handed him the phone. “Stay here with your sister and play your game while Papa and I see the rest of the house, all right?”

Remy took the phone. “Okay, Daddy.”

The child was immediately engrossed in the game, and after a quick check to make sure that Melanie was still asleep, the men were ready to see the rest of the house.

Unfortunately, the easy-going atmosphere of the tour was broken during Grantaire's tour of the newest appliances in the master bathroom, as Melanie began to cry, and Remy ran up the steps to the second level of the house while screaming, “Daddies! Melanie is stinky!”

“Go back downstairs, Remy! I'll be right there.” Anthony jokingly slapped Elijah's rear and stage-whispered, “Baby, I really want this house,” before going down to take care of his children.

As Anthony walked away, a small smile spread across Grantaire's face as he remembered when Eponine and he were looking for their very first house over twenty-one years previously, when Molly was only a few months old, and their oldest child, Danny, was running around on seven-year-old legs. Grantaire had felt the same way about the house that they chose that Anthony and Elijah appeared to be feeling now.

Grantaire shook the thoughts away before looking back at Elijah, who was looking around the room thoughtfully. Grantaire waited for a moment before asking, “So, what do you think?”

“I think . . . I agree with Anthony. What's the asking price?”

“Two-hundred.”

Elijah blanched, and his eyes widened before he shook his head. “That’s, uh, a little more than we were looking to spend, but . . . ” he looked around the room again, “can Anthony and I talk about it and come in sometime this week to make a bid?”

“Absolutely. Does Wednesday work?”

“I think so.”

“Well, you can always call and reschedule if you need to.” He held out his hand. Elijah looked at it nervously before extending his own hand out. “I will see you two Wednesday then.”

“Yeah, okay.”

Grantaire lead Elijah out of the bedroom, and together they made their way down to the living room, where Remy was still playing his game and Anthony was holding a naked baby against his chest, one hand on her bare back and one on her diaper. “She got hot,” he said shyly when he saw the raised eyebrow his husband was giving him.

“My girls would cry if they had anything besides their diaper on when it got this hot out,” Grantaire said, chuckling. He reached into his pocket and slipped Remy another piece of candy before turning back to Elijah. “If either of you have any questions, you can call me at my office. Otherwise, I will see you both on Wednesday.”

Anthony's face lit up, and he kissed Melanie on the side of the head before whispering, “You hear that, sweet girl? Your daddies may be buying a house on Wednesday.” The baby gurgled in response. Anthony gave her another kiss before smiling at Grantaire. “'Thank you for showing us the house.”

“You're very welcome. I am glad it seems to fit your needs.”

Grantaire watched the family leave before making his way back around the house to make sure that all the lights were turned out and that everything was back in its right location. Once he was done, he reset the security system before making his way back out to the car, his stomach growling, and a spring in his step.

His baby girl was coming home.

                        

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2

 

“So how long are you going to be gone again?”

Enjo, who was lounging on the couch and watching a movie on his phone, looked over at his roommate, Courfeyrac, and rolled his eyes. “Dude, we've talked about this like a million times. I'm staying with Molly's family for a couple of months until Rory and Andy buy a new house, and then I'll come back and get my shit to move in with them.”

“So . . . What, two months? Two and a half, at most?”

“Yeah, something like that.” He looked at Courfeyrac, making a face at him when he saw the anxious expression that came over the twenty-four-year-old's acne-covered face. He leaned over to the side and picked up one of his shoes, pausing for a second before chucking it as hard as he good in Courfeyrac's direction. “Dude, why are you concerned? You're an adult, you can live just fine by yourself. Unless . . . ”

Enjolras's eyes widened as he realized why Courfeyrac needed to know so badly. “Oh shit! You want Combeferre to move in here and take my room!”

Courfeyrac's cheeks flushed a dark red, and Enjolras knew that he had caught him. Combeferre was Courfeyrac's on-again, off-again fuck buddy, but Enjolras knew that Courfeyrac wanted more from the relationship. Combeferre came into the picture a few months after Courfeyrac and Enjolras had met at a gay bar just down the street from the university, and had bounced back and forth between wanting to be in Courfeyrac's life and wanting nothing to do with him ever since.

Enjolras, being the great friend that he was, thought it was his duty as Courfeyrac's friend to knock some sense into him, so he threw the other shoe. “You're an idiot, man. Why don't you just sell this place once I'm settled in St. Louis? I mean, you're done with school. You might as well move somewhere else.”

Courfeyrac scratched the back of his head, and looked down at the floor. “Yeah, maybe.”

He didn't say anything else before walking out of room and into the backyard to sulk. Enjolras rolled his eyes. He understood why Courfeyrac didn't want to sell the house (it was his, after all; Enjolras just paid him every month for the right to stay there), but still, he would do better getting away from that son of a butch and getting a fresh start.

That's what Enjolras was doing, anyway. He graduated (with honors!) with a degree in biochemistry (which he hated 95 percent of the time, but that was beside the point), and had already lined up several interviews for the last two weeks that he was staying with his best friend and her family.

Enjolras and Molly had been friends ever since they met in an intro to anthropology class a couple of years previously. They bonded over their hatred of the professor, and their love of Bob's Burgers, teriyaki chicken wings, and Ville Valo. They hadn’t become great friends, though, until Enjolras found out that Molly lived in St. Louis, a place that he had felt drawn too ever since he visited the city with his parents and his siblings when he was eight.

“Speak of the devil . . . ” Enjolras murmured as his phone lit up and began to vibrate off the side of the table, alerting him that Molly was calling him. He stared at the screen for a minute before picking it up, holding the phone to his ear. “Hello?”

“Hey.”

Enjolras could tell immediately from her tone that something was wrong. He swung around and stood up, going across the room and slipping his scattered shoes on before grabbing his car keys and heading outside. “What's wrong? I'm on my way over now.”

Molly didn't say anything. Enjolras began to feel a surge of panic rush through him, and he quickened his pace. When Molly began to sniffle, Enjolras slammed his foot down on the peddle and sped off in the direction of Molly's apartment.

He got there in record time and, it seemed, not a moment too soon, as her sniffles has grown louder during his drive. Realistically, it was probably just her hormones that were making her weepy, but with only fifteen weeks left in her pregnancy, Enjolras couldn't be sure.

He spun into a parking space and turned off his car, grabbing the spare key out of the center console before sprinting up the stairs and running into the apartment.

The moment that Enjolras saw Molly, he immediately felt relief. There had been a scare early on, right after Molly found out that she was pregnant, where she started bleeding profusely and had to be rushed to the emergency room. Enjolras went with her, but when the nurses discovered that he was not, in fact, the father, they banished him to the waiting room.

Luckily, this time there only seemed to be something emotionally wrong with Molly. Enjolras went over to the couch and sat down next to her, wrapping his arm around her quivering shoulders. “Molly, what’s wrong?” he asked, dropping a kiss to the top of her head. She didn’t say anything, simply shaking her head instead. He sighed and pulled her closer, letting her make the decision about when she wanted to speak to him.

It took a while, but eventually Molly calmed down enough to speak. “I told my mom that you’re coming home with me, and she says she’s perfectly fine with you staying until August with us.”

Enjolras gave Molly a confused look, and raised an eyebrow. “Is that what you’re crying about? I mean, I know you’re glad to spend two months with me, but . . . ” Molly fixed him with a glare and rolled her eyes. Enjolras chuckled. “You know I’m just teasing you, Mols. Seriously, though, why are you so upset? I thought you were excited to go see your parents.”

“I am. It’s just . . . what if they hate me for not telling them? I mean, I don’t even have a boyfriend, Enjolras. What are they going to think?” She bit her lip and began to cry again.

 “Hey, hey, don't cry,” Enjolras soothed, adjusting her so that both his arms were wrapped around her shoulders and her head was buried in his chest. “You're a grown woman, Molly, and you're going to be a great mom, regardless of whether you have a boyfriend or not. They're going to be surprised, definitely, but you're their daughter, Mols. They aren't going to hate you.”

He kissed the top of her head and wiped her tears away before reaching his hand down and interlacing their fingers. “Let's go to that ice cream shop you like so much. I'll buy you whatever you want.” He winked. “Hey, and if we're lucky, that smoking hot guy from your Brit Lit class will be working today.”

Molly snorted, rubbing her eyes to clear them of any remaining liquid. Sure, that guy from her class was hot, but he was much more Enjolras's type than hers with his mature features and strong jawline. Molly preferred guys with softer features that were closer to her age.

However, ice cream was ice cream, and if Enjolras got to gawk, then so be it. Molly nodded. “Yeah, let's go. Ice cream sounds good.”

She started to get off the couch, but she was thrown off-balance by her large belly. She sighed before looking at Enjolras for help.

Enjolras chuckled and made a show of how easy it was to stand up before putting one hand on her lower back and the other under her right elbow. He pulled her up, the hand on her back tightening as Molly began to sway on her feet.

Once she was steady, Molly leaned over and kissed Enjolras on the cheek in gratitude. “You know, Enjolras, if you weren't gay, you'd make me one great boyfriend.”

“Oh, you know you love going out to gay bars with me. We wouldn't do that if I was your straight boyfriend.”

“What about my bisexual boyfriend?”

Enjolras thought about it for a second, disgust filling his mouth as he thought about the first and only time that he had had sex with a woman. He had still been in high school, and he hadn't figured out that his fascination with (okay, an obsession with, really) his American history tutor was more of a romantic and sexual interest than in was in being his friend. He had been at a party, and there was this girl, Natasha, who expressed an interest in “going all the way” with him.

Enjolras couldn't stay hard until he locked eyes with the Captain Combeferre Sparrow poster that hung on the wall across from her bed, and he came wondering why the rum was always gone.

He shook his head, trying rid to himself of the thought. He started the car and looked over at her. “Sorry, honey, but I just can’t give off the bisexual vibe.”

Molly let out an overdramatic sigh. “What a sorry day for me.” She pretended to look sad for a moment, but it didn’t last long. She let out a soft noise, her eyes widening and her eyebrows shooting up. She reached over and grabbed Enjolras’s hand, pressing it down next to hers. “Can you feel that?”

Enjolras’s eyes widened as he felt the baby kick for the very first time. He knew that Molly had been able to feel it for weeks, but anytime she tried to get Enjolras (or anyone else, really) to feel it, the baby would stop moving until Molly was alone once again.

“Wow,” he murmured, his eyes locking on a spot directly next to his hand, where he could _see_ the baby moving inside of Molly. It wasn’t necessarily an obvious move, but the more intently that he stared, the easier it was for him to see the movement. “That’s amazing, Molly. I can’t believe you’re growing an entire human inside of you.”

“Yeah, tell me about it.” She stared at her stomach with a soft smile on her face a little longer before looking back up and smirking. “I believe that you promised me ice cream.”

“That I did.” Enjolras sat back up. He put the car into drive and pulled out of the apartment complex.

Ten minutes later, Enjolras parked the car in front of the ice cream parlor and turned the car off, quickly getting out and jogging around to Molly’s side so that he could open her door for her. Molly gave him a smile, and followed him into the shop.

They had only made it a few feet in when Molly poked Enjolras hard in the ribs. “There’s your man!” she whispered, nodding up towards the front of the shop, where, sure enough, the student was working, a black apron thrown over his jeans and polo.

Molly moved so that she was standing slightly behind Enjolras before pushing him forward. He stumbled over his feet, turning back to glare at her before facing back forward. He swallowed thickly, and took a step forward. He thought that Molly was going to follow him, but when she didn’t, he paused to glance over his shoulder. Molly winked and waggled the fingers of her left hand at him.

“What?” he asked, furrowing his brows at her actions. “I thought you wanted ice cream.”

She nodded, but started to walk in the direction of one of the tables, rather than up to the front. “I’m just going to sit down, and let you make our orders for us, all right?” She winked.

Enjolras gnashed his teeth, swallowing past the dryness in his throat and taking a shaky step forward. Normally, he wasn't nervous around guys, but Alistair (and the rest of the attractive men in the class, if Enjolras was being honest) was the exception. Enjolras had come to their class once to act in some presentation that Molly was giving, and he managed to get stuck in his toga mid-monologue and stumbled around the room, knocking over several of the desks and even the computer monitor.

Enjolras was somehow able to make it all the way up to the counter, his mind running through a constant loop of what he was ordering. He didn't think he could make a bigger fool out of himself than he already had, but anything was possible.

Alistair smiled as Enjolras came up to the counter. “Welcome to A Midsummer Ice Cream, what can I get for you today?”

“Uhm, can I get a chocolate cone and a . . . ” _say hot fudge sundae, say hot fudge sundae,_ “ . . . a hot fudge you.”

Enjolras smirked, feeling proud of himself. He had managed to get the order right without making a fool out of himself!

. . . or, at least he thought he had, until he heard Molly's laughter echoing around the room, and saw Alistair's eyes widen in shock. Enjolras coughed and looked down, his words coming out in a jumble as he tried to redeem himself. “I'm so sorry, I meant a hot fudge sundae, not you, but I'm sure a hot fudge you would be gr—”

He cut off as Alistair walked over to the ice cream machine and made Enjolras's orders. He brought them over to him and gave him a wink. “They're on the house.”

Enjolras took the frozen treats into his own hands. “Uh, thanks.” He dropped his eyes back down to the floor and turned on his heel. He walked over to the table and sat down, handing Molly her cone before staring down into his ice cream, his mind whirring a million miles a minute.

Molly watched him for a few moments before reaching out and taking his hand, a false compassionate smirk on her face. “Hey, at least this time, nothing got broken.”

Enjolras had to kick her to silence her laugh.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3

 

Grantaire double checked to make sure that the house key was on his set of master keys before starting the engine of his car and driving out of the neighborhood. He made sure that he had plenty of time to work on some paperwork at the office before picking up Kieran at five thirty. Luckily, it was barely four, so it was unlikely that he would run out of time.

Since he had so much time, Grantaire decided that the best course of action would be to drive through the closest McDonalds and get a large fry and two chocolate milkshakes, as he couldn’t remember whether or not he had even eaten breakfast. He knew for a fact that he had not had lunch.

After placing his order and pulling up to the front window, Grantaire sat in his car while the attractive man in the drive through window tried to scan his card. The man’s skin was a deep tan, and his curly black hair was clipped an inch or so above his scalp. He had one brown eye, and the other . . . Grantaire couldn’t tell. It looked like it was supposed to be grey, but the pupil had leaked into the iris and gave it the look of an exploded star.

Grantaire couldn’t help but stare at the way that the man’s arm muscles rippled as he slid the credit card. His lustful gaze turned to one of concern, however, when the man gave the card a confused look before trying to run it again.

Grantaire groaned and leaned over the center console, running his fingers along the nooks and crannies of the cup holder until he had successfully found enough change to cover his order.  
It appeared, though, that he didn’t need it, as the worker opened the window and gave Grantaire back his card before pulling out his wallet and winking. “This one’s on me,” he said, darting his tongue out to dampen his lips. Grantaire’s eyes were immediately drawn to the thick pink organ. The worker chuckled before putting the money in the till and grabbing the receipt. He took a pen and scribbled something on the back of the receipt before holding it out to Grantaire.

“Have a nice day, sir,” he said, winking again. Grantaire raised an eyebrow at him before looking at the thin sheet of paper to see that there were a series of numbers written that could only be identified as a phone number.

Grantaire smirked, shaking his head slightly. It had been a long time since any man had propositioned him. “You too.”

He folded up the receipt and tucked it into his pocket before pulling up to the next window and getting his food. He glanced in the bag to make sure that the order was correct before pulling out of the parking lot and back onto the main street, his mind whirring as he considered whether or not he would give the man a call.

Fifteen minutes later, Grantaire had decided that he was not going to call him, and crumpled up the receipt before throwing it into the back. He pulled up in front of a small double-level building that was made up of six store fronts. Grantaire’s office was on the second floor, although it stood out easily from the rest of the offices, as the entire front wall was made of glass. From Grantaire’s car, he could see the large fern that Eponine had bought for him on the first day that he had opened the office.

Grantaire ate the last of his fries before picking up the milkshakes and making his way upstairs. He opened the door and walked in, waving at his secretary and putting down the still-full drink on her desk. She brushed back one of her scarlet curls before picking the cup up and taking a long sip. “Mm, thank you, Grantaire,” she said, taking another drink before rubbing her swollen belly.

“You’re welcome, Kathy. I figured you’d be craving something sweet by now.” He winked. Kathy rolled her eyes, rubbing her stomach again. She had never had a sweet tooth, but after she had gotten pregnant for the second time, she had wanted anything that was sweet. Grantaire chuckled before getting back to business. “Did I get any calls while I was out?”

“Oh! Yeah, there was one, but they said that they would give you a call again in the morning . . . I think it was Arthur Roseman again, asking about if his house has sold yet.”

“I don’t think I could sell that house if I offered to _pay_ a buyer for it. Last time I was over there, I told him that he needed to fix the roof if he wanted any chance of it selling, but he didn’t want to listen to me.”

“Well, he’ll be in for a rude awakening when the three-year anniversary of it being on the market rolls around next month. Eponine called, too.”

“Yeah, she called me while I was with my last client. Apparently, she needs me to pick up Kieran tonight so that she can clean the house. Molly is bringing a friend home with her for the summer.” He made a face and raised his eyebrows as he remembered the friends that Molly had back in high school. They were notorious for destroying the house, and getting Molly into all sorts of things that she had no business doing, such as getting drunk at fifteen and T.P.ing a house when she was seventeen.

Kathy snorted, clearly remembering the same thing. “Yeah, good luck with that.”

Grantaire made a strangled noise. “Thanks.” He shook his head. “Listen, I’m going to try and get some paperwork done until I go pick her up, so if you need me, just knock, okay?”

“All right. I have to head out in a few minutes to pick up Lola from the sitter and drop her off at my mother’s house, but then I’ll come back and finish up your portfolio from those last three sales.”

“No, don’t worry about. You can do it tomorrow.” He looked down pointedly at her stomach. “You need to spend as much time with your daughter while it’s just the two of you as you can. Once the little boy comes along, everything is going to be different.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it. Have fun.” Grantaire took the last sip of his milkshake before tossing it in the trashcan next to Kathy’s desk before turning on his heel and going into his office. He pulled out his desk chair and sat down, opening his laptop and hitting the “on” button. He spun around while he waited, looking at the pictures around the room, his eyes landing on his favorite picture of Molly and Kieran at Molly’s high school graduation. She had looked so beautiful, and Eponine and he were beyond proud of her. Even with the mishaps with her friends, she had someone managed to be the valedictorian of her class, and she had graduated with a 4.75 GPA. She had taken all AP classes her senior year, and had aced her exams with ease.

It was crazy to think that over three years had gone by since that picture, and now his baby girl was all grown up and about to start her senior year of college, studying Medieval Literature and Folklore at the University of Oregon. And Kieran, she was starting high school at the end of the summer, and was on track for making the varsity soccer team in the spring. She had been training with the high school coach for nearly two years already, and was the best goalie that the high school had seen in a long, long time.

A loud ringing from the computer alerted Grantaire that his computer was ready for him to do his work. He shook his thoughts away and turned to the screen, logging in and pulling up Anthony and Elijah’s folder before beginning to enter their information for Wednesday.  
He had to admit, doing paperwork was tedious, but at least it paid the bills.

Well, he thought, patting the phone number in his pocket, at least it normally did.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4

 

“Are you finished?” Enjolras asked, chuckling when Molly dropped yet another glob of chocolate ice cream into the top of her belly.

Molly groaned and took one final bite of her cone before laying it down on the napkin and nodding. She winced as she stood up. “The baby is playing soccer with my bladder, so let me use the restroom real quick and then we'll go, all right?”

“Yeah, take your time.”

Molly waddled her way across the restaurant while Enjolras went to throw the napkins and the container from his sundae away. He started to walk back over to the table to wait, but he got stopped by a hand on his arm. He turned to Alistair smiling at him.

Enjolras may have found Alistair extremely attractive, but something about the way that he was gripping Enjolras’s forearm was making him uncomfortable. “Can I help you?” he asked, moving his free arm so that he could pluck Alistair's fingers off his arm one by one.

Alistair's smile grew. “I get off in a half hour.”

“Good for you?” Enjolras furrowed his brows and took a step back from Alistair. Alistair took a step forward.

“I get off in a half hour, so I'll be at my apartment on fifth and Hampton in forty-five minutes.”

“Again, good for you?” Enjolras shook his head, beginning to feel much more uncomfortable by the older man's looming presence. He couldn’t even find the attractiveness in him anymore, and that was saying something, because prior to this moment, Enjolras couldn’t find anything _but_ attractiveness.

From his place at the front of Molly's classroom, he thought that Alistair was gorgeous, with thick brown hair and bright blue eyes. He knew that he was older than Enjolras was, but he figured it was just by a few years. From this perspective, though, Enjolras could see that he had been very, _very_ wrong. Alistair had to be at least thirty-five, if not forty, and had specks of gray throughout his thick chocolate hair. While he was still incredibly attractive, he had deep lines etched into the corners of his eyes, and his teeth were wearing thin at the tips.

All things considered, Alistair's age was the last thing that Enjolras was worried about. He had dated one of his professors, for goodness sake, and _he_ was forty-eight. No, it was the predatory look in Alistair's eyes, and the way that his hand slipped back out to wrap about Enjolras's wrist that made him want to flee.

“Drop your little girlfriend off and come back to me,” Alistair demanded, tightening his grip and leaning forward so that Enjolras's back was bent against his hand.

Enjolras was about to tell the attractive and terrifying man that no, he wasn't going _anywhere_ with him, but he was saved by a burly man wearing one of the company's aprons tapping Alistair on the shoulder before crossing his arms.

“Get back to work, son, and leave this here boy alone, unless you want me to call up your p.o. and tell him that you've been speaking to our customers in a threatening fashion. I'm sure that they've kept your cell nice and damp for you, if you're ready to go back.”

Alistair squeezed Enjolras's arm and gave the intruder a withering look before straightening his back and storming back towards the counter. He didn’t say anything else.

 The man stepped towards Enjolras, his hands out with his palms up in an apologetic stance. “I'm sorry about that, son. I hired Alistair on the word of one of my best employees, but I can see why I may need to let him go.” He held a hand out. “I'm Maurice Brewer, the owner of A Midsummer Ice Cream. Next time you come in, anything you or your girlfriend want, it's on me. Just tell the cashier that Maurice said it was all right, and they'll listen to you.”

Enjolras nodded. “Thank you.”

Molly left the bathroom and came back over to Enjolras just as Maurice walked away. “What was that about?” she asked, watching the man's retreading back.

Enjolras thought for a moment before answering. “He just wanted to thank me for being a repeat customer. He says next time we are in, our ice cream is on the house.”

“Oh. That was nice of him. Are you ready to go?”

“Let’s do it.” Enjolras gestured towards the front door with his hand. He wanted so badly to run out of the shop and get away from Alistair, but there was no way that he was leaving his best friend to walk behind him, especially not with how vulnerable of a state she was in.

He made sure that Molly was nearing the car before he cast a glance over his shoulder. Alistair was giving him another threatening, lustful glare, his eyes sharp as he took a rag and started to clean one of the ice cream scoops, the grinding of his teeth evident even across the room by the shifting movements of his jaw.

Enjolras turned quickly on his heel and walked out of the parlor, rushing towards the car. Molly had already gotten in and was in the process of buckling up, so Enjolras didn’t have to waste any time before getting over to the driver’s side and getting in, waiting to put his seatbelt on until he had pulled out of the parking spot and gotten onto the road.

Once he was a comfortable distance away from the ice cream shop, he let out a breath of relief and looked over at Molly. “So, what do you want to do now?”

Molly stared out the windshield and screwed up her lips to the side before looking back at Enjolras. “Do you want to help me pack? Or do you still need to do that?”

“I still need to pack, but it can wait a couple of hours. I’ll help you.”

“Okay, cool. I need help deciding what I’m going to wear so that my parents see . . . you know.” She waved her hand over her stomach, her jaw tensing as her belly wiggled slightly from the baby’s movements.

Enjolras scoffed. “Do you really need me to do that? Can’t Nolie or someone make the decision for you?”

Molly shook her head. “Nolie has to work today. Besides, what is having a gay best friend for if you can’t choose my outfits for me?”

“Mols, I may be gay, but you know that I don’t know shit about fashion.” He gestured to the ripped jeans and Against Me! shirt that he was wearing. “Does this really look like the type of outfit a sassy gay friend would put together?”

Molly shrugged, and winked. “Hey, you never know, maybe the bum look is back in style. I mean, you pull it off, at least.” She leaned over the center console and ruffled Enjolras’s hair playfully. “So, then, what am I wearing?”

Enjolras groaned and slammed his hand on the wheel. It was going to be a long night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5

A little over an hour after he reached the office, Grantaire had finished up his paperwork, shut off the lights, and had locked the doors. He tucked the key into his pocket and went down to his car to get Kieran.

Ten minutes later, Grantaire pulled up in the parking lot next to the soccer field to see that he was the last of the parents to arrive. He shut off the engine and grabbed a Gatorade off the back seat before going over to stand next to a tall, attractive red-haired man by the name of Kevin. “Hey, Kevin,” he said, shaking the blue bottle gently. “How’s your husband’s research going? Chemistry, still, right?”

Kevin shook his head. “Actually, he finished all of the chemical aspects of his research, and just started to do . . . I don’t know exactly what, to be honest,” he said, chuckling as he reached up to scratch the back of his neck uncomfortably. “I think he’s doing something with creating his own formulas. I don’t know, it’s all just confusing to me.” He lowered his hand and pointed towards his daughter, who was joking with Kieran on the sidelines as they changed out of their cleats and into normal shoes. “Amanda, though, she takes after Edd, and they spend nearly an hour every night talking about whatever Edd’s figured out that day.”

“Well, at least someone knows what he’s talking about.”

“Tell me about it. He took Colin to swim practice on Monday, and Colin came home in tears because he thought that Daddy was making fun of him. Sometimes Edd forgets that his kids are still _kids_.” He shook his head. “Anyway, Kieran told Amanda that Eponine and you aren’t going to make it to the banquet this weekend since Molly is coming in town. Do you want us to pick Kieran up, so you don’t have to worry about how she’s going to get here?”

“That would be awesome. Thank you, Kevin.”

“You’re welcome.” Both the men looked up to see that the girls were walking over. It only took a few more minutes for Amanda and Kieran to reach their fathers.

Under the fluorescent lights of the practice field, Grantaire couldn’t help but study just how different and grown up his daughter had somehow started to look in just the last few months. Her once-curly light-blonde hair had grown long enough that the curls had turned into waves, and her skin had been tanned gold by hours upon hours of playing soccer, both at home and with her team. She had also slimmed out, although her legs had grown in thickness as they gained new muscles day in and day out at practice.

As Grantaire stared out over the emptying field, his mind wandered back and forth across all of the different memories that he, himself, had had with soccer. It didn't take long for Grantaire's mind to wander back to his first varsity game his senior year, and how excited he had been after months of practices pre-season, just like Kieran had been all season. _That_ game, though, was more than just Grantaire's first time playing on a varsity field. It was his first time realizing that he wasn't who he had always been taught to be.

_“I can’t believe we won!” Grantaire exclaimed, shoving at his friend, Greg, who was driving the car._

_“I know! Hey, Dad said that he ordered two large pizzas for us, so we should be set for the night. Hopefully it's there when we get home. I'm starving!”_

_“Me too!”_

_Fortunately, the boys didn't have to wait long to eat because, luckily enough, Greg’s father was paying the pizza man just as Greg and Grantaire pulled up. “I'll race you!” Greg exclaimed, tucking his keys into his soccer bag and starting to run before Grantaire even had the chance to get out of the car._

_Grantaire let out a groan and grabbed his overnight bag from the back seat. He turned back around and shook his head, trying his hardest to shake his chin-length chocolate hair away from his eyes before getting out of the car and jogging into the kitchen._

_Grantaire chuckled as he reached the farm-styled kitchen, his eyes wandering between the twenty-seven chicken statues placed strategically around the room, to Greg, who was sitting on a bar stool and stuffing his face with his first and second slices of pizza._

_There was a stack of plates next to Greg, as well as a couple of bottles of orange soda, so Grantaire helped himself before gesturing with his head in the general direction of Greg’s room. “Come on, let’s go watch a movie or something.”_

_Greg stood, and they walked down the hall and up the stairs towards the bedroom._

_An hour and four pieces of pizza later, Greg and Grantaire were sated, and had gotten sucked in to one of Grantaire’s favorite Thriller films,_ Trick or Treat _. Grantaire had seen it at least a dozen times, but since this was Greg’s first time, Grantaire decided to have some fun with it. He waited until one of the more eerie moments of the film, taking note of all of Greg’s reactions before lunging forward and making the blond boy shriek and jump out of his chair._

_“Oh, my God, you’re so easy,” Grantaire laughed, his knees flying up to his chest as he laughed._

_Greg turned red and glared. He climbed back onto his chair and punched Grantaire in the arm as hard as he could. “Fuck you, jackass.” He punched Grantaire again._

_Grantaire lashed back, and soon, the boys were in a full-on wrestling match on Greg’s floor. The play-fighting stopped, though, when Grantaire suddenly felt something pressing against his stomach. For a few seconds, he was able to pretend that he didn’t notice Greg’s arousal, but it was impossible to ignore when Greg gave him a lust-filled look and slammed Grantaire’s and his lips together._

_Grantaire struggled, and tried to push Greg off of him. He was straight, Goddammit! So was Greg! Grantaire’s dad had always said that those “pussies who liked sucking dick” were the reason that America was going straight to hell, and by God, Grantaire wasn’t going to do anything to dispute that._

_. . . When Greg started to grind his hips against Grantaire’s, however, all thoughts of his father flew from his head, and he just let it happen._

Grantaire was pulled from his mGrantaire as things started to get more graphic. Greg had most-definitely been Grantaire’s first love, and he was also his first heartbreak. They dated throughout the rest of the year, as well as most of their first year of college, but Greg cheated on Grantaire with another guy and left him broken hearted and swearing off men entirely.

Two years later, he was married to Eponine, and Danny had been born.

Grantaire shook the thought away. He hated thinking about Greg. All it did was remind him of a time that he was much better off just forgetting. It wasn’t Greg being a man that was bothering him so much, mind you. Especially with where Eponine and his marriage had landed over the last few years, he had no problem accepting the fact that he was attracted to men. It had taken him nearly two decades to accept it, but at least he finally had.

He didn’t have time to think about his sexuality for more than a few seconds, however, because Kieran reached him with a tired expression on her face and an aroma of body odor. “Hey, sweetheart,” Grantaire greeted her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her into his side.

“Hey, Dad. I’m starving. What’s for dinner?”

“Mom wants us to go to the store on our way home and pick something up. You okay with that?”

“Can I get dessert?”

Grantaire chuckled. If Kieran got her way, she would eat nothing but dessert for every meal. Regardless, she had worked her butt off the whole season, and if the dark flush of her cheeks and the windswept look of her hair were any indication, she worked just as hard at the end as she had at the beginning. “Sure. What do you want?”

“An Oreo cake?”

“Are you going to share with me and your mother?”

Kieran groaned, opening the passenger door and getting into the car, throwing her head against the back of the seat and squeezing her eyes shut. Grantaire chuckled before getting in on his side of the car and starting the engine. He buckled himself in before reaching over and pinching Kieran’s knee, his chuckles turning into laughter when she grimaced and growled at him. He winked. “What’s wrong?”

Kieran let out a huffed breath. “You’re impossible.” She crossed her arms and turned to face forward, scuffing the floor lightly with her cleats.

Forty minutes later, Kieran and Grantaire pulled into their driveway with their dinner in tow. Grantaire gathered the bags and started to get out of the car, but he stopped when he realized that Kieran wasn’t climbing out with him. He poked his head back into the car.

At some point during the drive, Kieran had fallen asleep with her feet up on the dashboard, and her head resting against the window. Grantaire leaned forward and poke her in the side. She didn’t even flinch. He poked her a few more times, each one getting harder than the last. Eventually, she let out a groan, and lifted her head. “What?”

“We’re home.”

Kieran gave him a confused look before turning to look at the house. “Oh.” She slowly got out of the car and started to walk up to the house. Grantaire followed behind her with the bags.  
Kieran sat down at the table and put her head on her hands. Grantaire walked past her to Eponine, who was staring into the fridge, her womanly body and voluptuous hips silhouetted against the fake lights. Grantaire leaned over and kissed her on the cheek before setting the bag down on the counter and taking out the premades.

Eponine looked over at him. “Hey, you.” She looked at the chicken, nodding in approval before going over to the table and sitting down.

Grantaire got out the plates and silverware. He cut the chicken up and took the salad out of the bag, putting a bit of dressing over the top of the greens. He put the plates on the table before grabbing two bottles of water for Kieran and himself, as well as a large glass of Merlot for his wife.  
Kieran sat up and began to eat, her eyes hooded and her chewing slow. Eponine watched her for several seconds with a small smile on her face. She brushed away one of her honey curls before reaching forward and squeezing Kieran’s hand. “Just the dinner this weekend and two games next week, sweetie, and then the season will be over until next spring.”

Kieran made a noncommittal sound and nodded. Grantaire kicked her lightly under the table before turning to Eponine. “So, how was your day?”

“It was fine, I booked a wedding, and I got to experiment with some teenager’s hair. He wanted a blue Mohawk.”

“Well, that sounds exciting.” He glanced around the kitchen. “The kitchen looks nice.”

“Thanks. I also did—” she cut off, looking up as Kieran stood up and put her plate in the sink. “Rinse that off, please. And make sure you finish your homework before you go to bed.”  
Kieran groaned, but did as she was asked, and soon, Grantaire and Eponine were alone.

Grantaire glanced up the stairs as Kieran slammed her door shut before reopening it and yelling, “Sorry!” back down to her parents before slamming it again. He shook his head before looking back at Eponine. He screwed up his mouth to the side and raised his eyebrows at her before standing up and picking up the plates. Eponine started to move to help him, but Grantaire stopped her with a wave of his hand.

“I got it,” he said, gesturing towards her still-full wine glass before moving his head towards the living room. “You go and find us a movie or something, okay? I’ll finish up in here.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, you’ve been cleaning the last couple of hours. Go relax.”

“Thank you.” Eponine walked around the table and squeezed Grantaire’s hand before picking up her glass and leaving the kitchen. Grantaire stacked the plates and took them over to the sink. He scraped off the remaining bits of chicken and lettuce and rinsed off the plates before sticking them into the dishwasher.

Once the dishes were cleaned up, Grantaire put the remaining chicken and salad away before pulling out the Oreo cake and cutting a large slice for Kieran, and healthier sizes for Eponine and himself. He put the slices on plates. He moved Eponine and his plate to the back of the counter before picking up Kieran’s and heading upstairs to take it to her.

Grantaire walked down the hall and rapped on Kieran’s door with the back of his knuckles. He expected to hear her groan at her homework, or make some sort of smart comment at her father, but nothing came. He knocked again, only this time, he hit the door harder. There still was no response.  
Grantaire pressed his ear against the wood, but the room was totally silent. He pulled back and slowly opened the door so that he wouldn’t disturb his youngest child. When he saw Kieran, though, he knew that that wouldn’t have been a problem.

The overhead light was still on, as was the light on Kieran’s desk. She had a pencil in her hand and her textbook open, and her cheek was pressed against the graphite-laden page of her math notebook.

Grantaire chuckled before turning on the light next to Kieran’s bed, and grabbing one of her throw blankets. He turned off the desk lamp and the overhead light before covering her up, setting her plate and her fork down on the far end of the desk so that she would find it when she woke up. He put a hand on the back of her neck and leaned down to kiss her cheek before leaving the room as quietly as he had entered.

Grantaire went back down to the kitchen and grabbed a Smirnoff Ice for himself before picking up the two plates and taking them into the living room. He handed one to Eponine and sat down on the loveseat adjacent to her.

Eponine gave Grantaire a small smile. “Thank you.” She took a sip of her wine and a bite of the cake before turning back towards the television. She watched the show idly for a few seconds before turning back to Grantaire. “Was Kieran all right?”

Grantaire smirked, remembering his wife’s command for her to get her homework done before going to bed. “Yeah, she’s definitely on top of her homework.” He winked, and Eponine immediately knew exactly what he meant.

She sighed and shook her head. “Well, I guess that homework will get done eventually.”

“Do you want me to go wake her up?”

“No, let her sleep. It’s her responsibility to get her homework done, not ours.”

“Okay.” Grantaire stretched himself out, his feet pressed against the coffee table and his back digging into the couch cushions. “So . . . Molly is coming home tomorrow.”

“Yes, she is.” Eponine turned and furrowed her brow at Grantaire. “What about it?”

Grantaire didn’t say anything, choosing instead just to stare at Eponine. Eponine raised an eyebrow at him. Grantaire continued just to stare until finally he said, “How are we going to tell Kieran and her that we got a divorce?”

Eponine looked down at her lap, picking up her wine glass and swirling the liquid around. She took a long sip before looking back at Grantaire, an incredibly vulnerable look on her face, and tears brimming her eyes. “Do we have to tell them?”

“Sweetheart, they need to know. We can’t keep it from them forever. They’re already going to be furious that they weren’t part of this decision.”

“Can’t we at least wait until Molly’s friend goes home?”

Grantaire stood and moved to sit down next to his ex-wife. He wrapped his arm around her and kissed her temple. “If that’s what you think we should do, then that’s what we’ll do.”

Eponine leaned into his chest, wrapping an arm around his waist and nuzzling into his shoulder. “I’m glad that the divorce didn’t destroy our friendship, Grantaire. I don’t know what I’d do without you in my life, one way or another.”

“Me too.” Grantaire gave Eponine another squeeze before getting up and moving back over to his original place. He downed half of his drink and grabbed the Roku controller off the coffee table, as well as the normal remote. He switched the input so that they could watch a movie, choosing one at random that he knew neither Eponine nor he had seen before.

As the film began to play, though, Grantaire found that he couldn’t pay attention to it at all. He couldn’t stop thinking about what had led Eponine and him here, divorced and desiring very different routes for their lives than the one that they had taken together.

Eponine and he had never been in love. It was a sad fact, but it was true. They were best friends, yes, but they had never truly been lovers. They had had drunken sex once their junior year of college, and Eponine had ended up pregnant with Danny. They figured that they were good enough friends to make it work, so they got married that very summer, and had been married ever since.

After Danny passed away when he was twenty-two, however, everything changed. They still had that easy-going aspect of their relationship, and they had no problem having sex or being affectionate with one another, but they just couldn’t keep on fighting for their marriage, especially when Eponine and the divorce lawyer, Brent, developed feelings for one another. Grantaire didn’t mind, though. If he was being honest with himself (and he was, now that he was divorced), he thought that Brent was pretty hot, as well.

. . . Besides, being married to a woman never would have worked out for Grantaire anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6

 

The next morning, Enjolras and Molly had made the flight from Eugene, Oregon to St. Louis, Missouri, and had gotten a rental car to get from the airport to the Partridge house. They had contemplated taking one of their cars, but Molly decided that she would feel far too uncomfortable sitting in a car for thirty-one hours, so they sucked it up and shelled out the extra cash for the flight.

Enjolras was driving, and he was humming along with the radio as he cruised down the highway, the GPS on his phone chattering to him. Molly was sitting silently in the passenger seat, her eyes darting back and forth. She lifted her thumb up to her mouth and bit down on the carbon, letting out a quiet noise in the back of her throat.

Enjolras looked over at her. “Are you okay?”

Molly darted her eyes over to him and nodded. She didn’t say anything, though, and continued to chew on her thumb nail. Enjolras sighed and put a hand on her knee. “Mols, calm down. Everything is fine.”

Molly raised her eyebrows and put her hand down on her lap. “Yeah, everything’s fine, this is just about to be the first time I’ve seen my parents in six months, and they have no idea I’m seven-and-a-half months pregnant. Yeah, _definitely_ fine.”

Enjolras gave Molly a look of disbelief, trying to ignore the urge to roll his eyes and lecture her _again_ about her decision not to tell her parents about the baby. He told her as soon as she decided she was keeping it that they needed to know, but she was much too afraid to tell them. They were still paying for her schooling, and with only a year left, she didn’t want to face their wrath until she had found a good enough job that would allow her to pay her tuition on her own, if she had to.

He looked back at the highway, biting his tongue. He knew that Molly was nervous, and if he was a good friend, he would do something to try and ease her fear. He was at a loss of what to do, though, or at least he was, until he saw a sign for Dairy Queen. He pulled off of the highway and into the drive through, ordering for both Molly and him.

Molly was still so deep into her own world that she didn’t notice what was going on until Enjolras had handed her her blizzard.

“What’s this?” she asked, taking the lid off and poking the spoon Enjolras gave her into the frozen treat.

“It’s a midnight truffle blizzard. I figured that it might help you _chill_ out,” he said, waggling his eyebrows and nudging Molly with his elbow.

Molly rolled her eyes, but took a bite. “You’re awful.”

“You’re really going to say that after I spent my hard-earned money on getting that for you?”

Molly rolled her eyes again and pushed back at Enjolras before lounging back in her seat and messing with the radio. She flipped through the stations until she found her favorite station before singing along under her breath with the song that was playing.

Enjolras glanced down at his GPS before looking back up to the road and getting back on the highway. It took him that he was only a couple of exits away from the one that he needed to take, so he made sure to keep his eyes sharp and his attention focused on what he was doing.

Sure enough, it was only five more minutes before he reached the exit, and started to lead them down the streets that would take them to Molly’s childhood home. Enjolras hoped that Molly would be some help, and tell him a shortcut or something that would get them to the house without having to continue on with the main street, where people apparently were paying more attention to their phones and to their children than they were to the road.

Enjolras and Molly were nearly hit at least a dozen times over the course of three miles.

The GPS beeped to tell Enjolras that he had reached Molly’s neighborhood. He turned and watched closely for the house that he had seen so many pictures of on her Facebook. He drove past it twice (since Molly was absolutely _no_ help), but eventually, he managed to pull into the correct driveway. He turned the car off and started to get out when he realized that Molly had frozen once again, and was staring blankly into her blizzard.

Enjolras reached over and took her hand. “Hey, let’s just go take your stuff in, say hello to your parents, and bail right again. You wanted to go do something with some of your friends, right? Do you still want to do that?”

Molly gave a small nod, tightening her grip around the blizzard cup. She took a deep breath and looked up at the house, clenching her teeth and resting her arm on the top of her stomach, the baby squirming below her hand and making the lower left side of her belly ripple. She let out another long breath through her nose and looked back at Enjolras. “Do I have to do this?”

“Yes, you do.” Enjolras pulled the keys out of the ignition and got out of the car, going around the front so that he could get Molly’s door for her. He held his arm out and helped her step onto the sidewalk. “Go on inside, and I’ll meet you up there in a minute, okay?”

Molly gave him a tight grin and moved her head slightly in an attempt of a nod. She waddled up towards the house, getting all the way up to the doorknob before she stopped. She put her hand out and hesitated.

Enjolras sighed and shook his head, beginning to feel extremely annoyed at Molly’s fear and apprehension. He grabbed the suitcases as she went into the house, and waited another thirty seconds before making his way up the drive and going inside.

 

***

 

Grantaire was watching reruns of Law and Order: SVU while Eponine was in the kitchen making her famous sugar cookies. Grantaire wasn’t really paying all that much attention to the television, though, and quickly decided that his time would be better spent looking at one of the many photo albums that Eponine had stashed on the bottom level of the coffee table.

Grantaire picked up a dark-blue photo album that had a crisscross pattern on the front and back covers in a light-blue ribbon. It was the first album that they had of all three kids together. The first image was of the day that Kieran was brought home, when Molly and Danny got to meet their baby sister for the very first time. Kieran was asleep in her car seat, and Molly and Danny were crouched down on either side of her with big smiles on their faces.

Grantaire ran his fingers over the picture with a soft smile on his face. Before he could get to the next page, though, he heard the doorknob jiggle. He shot up and quickly tossed the album back onto the table before going over to the door and waiting for his daughter. Eponine joined him soon after with a big smile on her face. She reached down and squeezed Grantaire’s hand, impatiently bouncing her foot.

If Grantaire wasn’t so impatient himself, he would have teased Eponine for her excitement, but as it were, he was bursting at the seams for his daughter to walk through the door.

. . . When the door opened, all that excitement disappeared, and his stomach was filled with lead.

Where once stood his beautiful, petite baby girl, stood a young woman, her belly swollen and full of a child. She was still beautiful, and her hair, honey-toned and wavy like her mother’s, had grown longer to cover her chest, but there was no denying that she was pregnant.

For one heart-stopping, anger-filled moment, Grantaire thought that Eponine knew about Molly’s condition and just hadn’t told him, but one glance at her open mouth and wide eyes told him that she was just as dumbfounded as he was. He looked back at Molly. She looked absolutely terrified, and a quick glance down to her hand told Grantaire that she had resorted back to her childhood bad-habit of chewing her nails, down to the quick. The ends were jagged and soft, and he could see the spots around her nails where she had bitten too deep, and broken the skin.

Grantaire didn’t know what to say, and neither, it seemed, did Molly nor Eponine. A few minutes later, though, it appeared that they wouldn’t have time to say anything else, anyway, as Molly’s friend walked in  . . . and most definitely was _not_ a young woman, like Eponine and Grantaire had thought that he would be.

The newcomer was a young man in his early twenties with wavy, cropped blonde hair and golden tan skin. Dimples appeared on his cheeks when he smiled at Eponine and Molly, and his lean body, while a bit on the shorter side, showed that he maintained a healthy lifestyle and kept his body in good shape.

Grantaire couldn’t help but stare at the young man, who easily could be mistaken for a Greek God if he had switched out his jeans and blue tee-shirt for a soft, white toga. He knew that this was not the time to focus on the man’s attractiveness, though, _especially_ when he had bigger concerns when it came to his daughter.  He reached a hand up to scratch at the back of his neck as he cleared his throat and said, “Molly, aren’t you going to introduce us to your friend?”

Molly lifted a shaky hand and pushed a strand of hair behind her ear before nodding. “Mom, Dad, this is Enjolras.”

Eponine, somehow, pulled herself from her stupor, and she remembered that she was supposed to be the matron of the house. She stepped forward and pulled Enjolras into a hug. “It’s good to meet you, Enjolras.”

She stepped back and gave Grantaire a light nudge. Grantaire, who had been startled by a sudden movement of his grandchild across his daughter’s belly, stepped forward and shook Enjolras’s hand. “Yeah, it’s nice to meet you.”

Enjolras awkwardly shook Grantaire’s hand back, but Molly didn’t move. She crossed her arms and leaned back on her heels, her eyes brimming with tears and her lower lip quivering while she waited for her parents to say something. Grantaire studied her expression, and was quickly reminded of all of the times while she was growing up that she would make that exact same face when she knew that she had done something wrong, and that she was going to get the worst punishment she could ever imagine.

Molly needed their support at a time like this, not a punishment.

All of the anger and shock rushed out of Grantaire, and he stepped forward to pull his oldest daughter into a hug, no longer able to stand the look on her face. “I'm so glad you're home baby,” he whispered, kissing her on the side of the head and doing his best to ignore the addition to her body.

“I'm sorry,” she whispered back, sniffling softly and nuzzling her face into his neck. Grantaire hugged her tighter as she began to cry. His mind went back, again, and he remembered all of the times that she had come to him crying about this or that, and how he had simply held her and placed gentle kisses into her hair.

Now, he knew, he needed to do exactly that. No matter how big she was, she was still his little girl, and he needed to treat her like that. “Hey, there's no need to cry, sweetheart. Everything is fine.” He rubbed her back before pulling out of the hug. He held her out at arm's length and tried to smile encouragingly at her. “You have nothing to be afraid of.”

Molly nodded and bit her lip before moving over to hug her mother. Eponine told her the same thing as Grantaire had, as well as telling her how cute her belly was. Molly still looked very apprehensive, and she kept looking back and forth between her parents and Enjolras.

Once Eponine and Molly had pulled apart, Molly rocked back on her heels and put one hand onto her stomach, and moved the other to support her lower back. She stood in silence for a moment before saying, “Enjolras and I are going to take my bags up to my room and then we're going to go hang out with Kate and Larson for a couple of hours, but we'll be back for dinner.” She gestured at Enjolras with her head up the stairs, and together they set off, luggage heavy in Enjolras’s hands.

Grantaire and Eponine, however, still feeling the shock, didn't move from their place in hall until Enjolras and Molly had returned back downstairs and left the house.

By the time that Grantaire came back to his senses, and realized that Enjolras and Molly were gone, Eponine was still in a trance-like state, her head shaking slowly back and forth while her eyes widened.  Grantaire grabbed her hand and pulled her into the living room. He pushed her down onto the couch before going into the kitchen to grab two water bottles from the refrigerator.

Grantaire went back into the living room handed Eponine a bottle before taking a large gulp of his own. Eponine unscrewed the lid with shaky hands, and took a small sip, her eyes staring unseeingly at the blank television screen across the room. She shook her head, taking another small sip.

“Hey, at least you almost got his name right,” Grantaire joked, trying to lighten the tense mood.

Eponine's aura didn't change. She closed her eyes and sighed, turning her face down towards the floor. “I guess that's why she sprung him coming home with her on us so quickly. She wanted him here when we found out.”

Grantaire shook his head. “Sweetheart, it looks like she has had plenty of time to tell us.” He moved to sit down next to her, putting a hand on her thigh. “At least she told us before she had the baby.”

Eponine made a choked sound. “Yeah.” She shook her head again and looked back at the ground.

For several long, tense minutes, the room was quiet, but eventually Grantaire had to ask, “Where are we going to put him?”

That brought Eponine back to reality, and she made a disgusted noise. “He's not staying here. No way.”

Grantaire squeezed her knee. “Honey, she's already pregnant. He can't do any harm by staying here.” He shook his head. “Besides, we don't know for sure he's the father. Maybe he didn't have anywhere else to go.”

Eponine let out a breath. “I guess you're right . . . We don't have anywhere to put him, though. I figured they could share Molly's room, but now . . . ”

Grantaire thought for a moment before an idea came to mind. He didn't like it, and he knew Eponine would hate it, but what choice did they have? “He could stay in Danny's room.”

Eponine's gaze turned stony, and she looked like she wanted to kill Grantaire for even suggesting such a thing. “No. Not in a million years.” She shook her head vigorously. “No way.”

“Would you rather he spend the next six weeks sleeping on the couch?”

Eponine's eyes filled with tears, and she sniffed loudly before standing up and storming towards the kitchen, tossing an anger-filled exclamation over her shoulder. “You move Danny's things, then. I won't do it.” She went through the kitchen and out through the back door, making sure to slam it hard against the frame as she went out to the garden.

Grantaire watched his ex-wife leave with sad eyes. His stomach was in knots, and a sour taste had developed in his mouth. He hadn't been into Danny's room since the argument that they had the night before the crash, but he was right, Enjolras needed somewhere to stay during his time with the Partridge family, and that place wasn’t going to be the couch.

Grantaire forced himself to get off of the couch and go up to the room, although his feet felt like they weighed a thousand tons as he dragged them up the stairs and towards the dark-wood that had once been Danny’s sanctuary and refuge, the place where he kept his soccer trophies and his dirty magazines. When Grantaire finally landed in front of the wood, though, he ran into a problem when it came to actually opening the door. It wasn't locked, but the lack of use over the last five years made it a bit of a challenge to open.

Grantaire pushed on the door and tried to pull it out, before twisting the knob around as far as it would go and leaning back. He tried to ram his shoulder into the door. He tried to reason with the door, telling it all the reasons why it needed to open for him.

In the end, Grantaire broke into his son’s room with the help of one of Eponine’s bobby pins and a credit card.

Actually entering past the doorframe, however, was a whole other challenge. It took all of Grantaire's strength for him not to fall to his knees when he looked into the room. God, it looked the exact same as it did all those years ago, albeit a bit dustier. Danny's bed was rumpled from when he went to sleep after Grantaire and he spent hours screaming at one another about something stupid. Grantaire couldn’t remember now what the fight was about, but it couldn’t possibly have been something so important that his son had to pay for it with his life.

He walked towards the bed, his hear thumping in his ears and his eyes burning. He sat down and picked up the pillow, bringing it up to his face and desperately hoping for any trace of Danny, and breaking into tears when he discovered that it did not exist. It had been five years since his passing, so Grantaire knew that the pillow would take on a scent of its own, but there was still something heartbreaking about its lack of Danny-shaped indentation, something that he had left in it during his musing after him and Grantaire finally finished screaming at one another.

Danny didn’t die immediately after the fight, though. It was the day after, and Grantaire and he had been acting extremely cold towards one another while they each tried to work out their own anger at one another. Danny was said something snarky at dinner (once again something that wasn’t important enough for Grantaire to remember the exact wording of), and Grantaire had gone off on him. Danny had stormed off and told Eponine that he was going to go bar-hopping with his girlfriend, Alyse, and some of their friends, and that she shouldn’t bother waiting up, because he _definitely_ wasn’t going to come home that night, not with the way that Grantaire was acting. 

Around midnight, Grantaire and Eponine got the call that changed their lives forever.

Danny was supposed to have been the designated driver because of his football scholarship at UMSL and the big game coming up, but that night, he just didn't care, and drank himself into a stupor in under two hours. Alyse and his friends, though, were worse off, and he thought he could handle his liquor enough that a light buzz wasn’t enough to warrant them spending money on a cab, when he could get them home for free.

He had been going a ninety in a twenty, the police report said, and he had tried to make a curve that was much too sharp for that speed, especially with the rainy weather that they had had earlier in the day. His car spun off the road, and was wrapped around a tree before any of the young twenty-somethings even knew anything was wrong.

There were no survivors.

Ever since that night, Grantaire had blamed himself for his son's death. Grief counseling told him that he wasn't to blame, but in his heart, he knew that if Danny hadn't been so angry at him, he would have stayed within the legal blood-alcohol level, and would still be alive. Hell, Danny had been planning on proposing to Alyse on their next anniversary, for Christ's sake (which, that reminded Grantaire, was something that the fight was about . . . he thought Danny was too young).

Cleaning out the room was harder than it sounded and, unfortunately, it seemed that the only way that Grantaire would be able to get through cleaning the room was with a little bit of the thing that killed his only son.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7

 

_Enjolras followed Molly up to her room, her bags in hand. He wished that Molly would walk up the stairs faster than she was, though, because he could feel Mr. and Mrs. Partridge’s eyes locked on his back as he walked behind her, and he knew what they were thinking. They thought that he was the father, and that Molly brought him with her to tell that them they were getting married, or had already gotten married, or that they were moving halfway across the world to raise the baby with wolves._

_. . . Okay, maybe not the last one so much, but they were definitely suspicious._

_Molly must have picked up on Enjolras's anxiousness, because she started to skip steps and muttered, “I'm going, I'm going,” until she and Enjolras were fully on the second floor. She led Enjolras to a room at the end of the hall that had a large painting of a wood nymph resting on a rock painted onto it, it hand stretched out and stopping a few centimeters away from the knob. Enjolras eyed it curiously before Molly pushed open the door and let Enjolras see his first glance into Molly's childhood bedroom._

_The walls were a pale pink, and were covered in more posters and paintings of Faerie folk and other creatures from different folklores. There was a bare desk in one corner of the room, a twin-size bed with polished gold ends and a hunter-green comforter in the other. There were pillows of all different sizes and colors piled up on the bed, and there were even a couple of stuffed animals thrown about here and there._

_Enjolras winked at Molly as he caught sight of a Robert Pattinson lookalike doll that was staring proudly up from the pile of pillows. “Nice vamp, Mols.”_

_Molly blushed, and she quickly went over to the bed to bury the doll beneath the rest of the pillows. “Kieran must have left that in here,” she lied, reaching up to scratch her neck as her cheeks somehow managed to turn even a darker shade of red._

_“Uh-huh, sure she did.” He put the suitcases down by the open closet._

_Molly made sure that the doll was completely covered before gesturing with her head towards the steps. “Ready to go?”_

_“Yeah, sure.” Enjolras followed Molly back down the steps and towards the front door. As he passed her parents (who were still staring in shock at the spot where Molly had stood a few minutes earlier), he gave them a warm smile and said, “It was nice meeting you.”_

_Grantaire and Eponine said nothing back._

_Enjolras shook his head and followed Molly out to the car, fishing the keys out from his pocket. He opened the passenger door for her before going around and getting in on the driver side. “Well, at least they didn't yell at you.”_

_Molly smacked the back of Enjolras's head._

_***_

By the time that Molly and Enjolras had finished hanging out with Kate and Larson, and Molly had given Enjolras a tour of her favorite parts of town, Enjolras was beyond ready to eat something. It was already three-thirty, though, so he knew that going out and getting actual food would not be a very good idea, especially if he wanted to make a better impression on the Partridges at dinner.

Molly, though, seemed to be in the same boat. She rubbed her belly and stretched her legs out in front of her, kicking one of her feet up to hit the dashboard. “The baby wants apple pie,” she announced, looking over at Enjolras and giving him a long look.

Enjolras snorted. “Oh does he? Or she?” He shook his head. “Damn, Mols, this whole not-knowing-the-gender thing is getting too confusing for me.”

“I told you, I am finding out in a few weeks so that my parents can be there. Regardless, feed me apple pie.”

“Mols, where am I going to get you apple pie? I don't know shit about food here.”

Molly thought for a minute, turning to look out the window at the stores and restaurants flying by as Enjolras drove aimlessly through the streets, delaying the time to get back home. Eventually, she looked back at Enjolras. “Well, I remember my grandma telling me about this new diner that went up across the street from her and grandpa's house right before they moved . . . She liked their pie, so do you want to try there?”

“Sure. Just tell me where to go.”

Molly did, and soon, they were pulling into the parking lot of a small dinner that had been built inside of a two-story house. Outside of the building was a hand-painted sign that said “Maudie's Diner,” and had vines of ivy creeping up from the base up to the very top.

Enjolras turned off the car and got out to open Molly's door for her. They linked arms and made their way up the creaky wooden steps and through the slightly-rotted doorway, feeling incredibly cautious about what they would find as they approached the main room.

Surprisingly, the 'diner' portion of the house didn't match the decrepit nature of the outside, and actually felt rather homey. The walls had a thin board of oak as a chair rail, with dark-red paint above it, and yellow-and-cream paisley wallpaper below it. The carpet was bare in places, but it looked like it had been freshly cleaned, and had a pleasant lemony aroma to it. There were round tables with white tablecloths on them scattered around the room, five of which were occupied by other diners.

Molly and Enjolras looked around for a hostess before sitting down at one of the tables next to a large window overlooking the vegetable garden in the backyard.

After a minute or so of just looking around, a young man in khakis and a green apron approached the table, glasses of lemonade in his hand and a smile on his face. “Welcome to Maudie's,” he said, putting the lemonades down and scanning his eyes over Enjolras's form, letting them rest on the shape of his pecs. “My name is Joshua, and I'll be your server today. Would you like to try some of Maudie's famous pie, or would you like me to get you two cuties a menu?”

Enjolras looked at Molly before looking back at Joshua. “What kind of pies do you have?”

“Key lime, apple, coconut, chocolate, and rhubarb.”

Enjolras thought for a moment before making a decision. “I’ll take rhubarb, please, and Molly will have . . . ” he studied her for a second, trying to remember what she said in the car. Molly smirked and raised an eyebrow, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms onto the top of her stomach. Enjolras furrowed his brows and pursed his lips before it came back to him, and he sat up straighter. “She’ll have apple.”

Joshua nodded. “All right, that will be right out for you.” He gave the duo a smile before not-so-slyly checking Enjolras out again.

Enjolras, however, did the same thing as Joshua walked away. His khaki workpants clung tightly to his rear and his strong legs, and the tight mint-green polo he had on showed off the shape of his back. He was swinging his hips as he walked and, when he glanced over his shoulder back at Enjolras and winked, Enjolras knew that Joshua knew exactly what he was doing.

Molly snorted as she watched the exchange. “Damn, Enjolras, how are you single, again?”

Enjolras pulled his eyes away from the doorway and looked back at Molly, shrugging his shoulders and pulling out his phone to open up his Grinder profile, flipping idly through the different men that popped up. “I have no idea.”

He continued to look at different profiles, his libido climbing as Joshua walked by again, stopping at the table to the left of Enjolras and Molly and leaning down to clear off some of the crumbs, his tight rear directly in front of Enjolras’s face. Enjolras swallowed thickly and tried to keep his eyes on his phone and away from temptation. It was only the first day in St. Louis, and there were more important things to focus on then some delicious specimen of man-meat flaunting his assets in a restaurant.

Fortunately, Enjolras didn’t have to try and hold off his desire for much longer, as it only took a few minutes before an elderly lady with fluffy white hair walked out, a plate in each hand. She walked towards Enjolras and Molly, giving them a warm smile and air kisses before setting down the plates onto the table. Enjolras grabbed the one with dark-purple goo oozing out of the center, while Molly took the one with a large dollop of whip cream on the top. The elderly women interlaced her fingers and watched the young twenty-somethings take their first bites.

“Do you like them?” she asked, her eyes twinkling as Molly and Enjolras both took large second bites.

Enjolras was the first one to swallow his bite, and he nodded enthusiastically. “The pie is delicious. Did you make it?”

The woman nodded. “I sure did, sweetheart.” She held her hand out. “Maudie Rovington at your service. And when you finish your pie, you should duck on up the street to Nevermore Baked Goods and get one of those chocolate raspberry tarts.” She shuddered at the mGrantaire of the sweet. “They put my pies to shame.”

“Oh, I don’t think that’s possible.” Molly took a sip of her lemonade to wash down the soft, flaky crust of the apple pie. Her eyes widened at the sweet taste of the drink. Enjolras tried it, too, and had a similar reaction. It was sweet, but not cloyingly so, unlike the lemonade that he was used to making from a chalky yellow powder that came from a jar. It also had a slightly tart aftertaste, and smelled strongly of fresh lemons.

“Did you make the lemonade yourself, too?” Enjolras asked, taking another sip.

Maudie nodded. “I did. It’s my mother’s recipe.” She glanced over her shoulder as more patrons entered the restaurant. She broke out into a beam and turned back to Molly and Enjolras, apologizing to them and excusing herself before going over to the young man and the preteen girl that walked into the restaurant, exclaiming, “Allie! Come give your Grandma Maudie a kiss.”

Enjolras watched her pull the girl into the hug before looking back down at his pie and taking another large bite, once again marveling at the deliciousness of the pastry. He continued to take bites until he had gotten halfway through the piece, when he decided that he should take the rest home so that he wouldn’t completely spoil his dinner. Molly, on the other hand, had devoured hers, and had drained her lemonade. She watched Enjolras take his final bite with a sated smile on her face and a sleepy glint in her eyes.

Enjolras gestured with his head towards the door. “Come on. Let’s get you home. It’s still early enough that you can nap for an hour or so before dinner, and I’ll keep myself entertained with my phone or something.”

Molly’s smile grew, and her eyes began to flutter shut of their own accord. “Sounds good to me.”

Enjolras glanced around the restaurant for Joshua, so that he could get their check. He managed to find him by a handsome African American man, once again working his charm. Once Enjolras let out a soft, “Oh, Joshua,” in a sing-song voice, however, Joshua was back to his beck and charm, giving him a flirtatious smile and brushing his wavy brown hair back over his brow.

“How can I help you?” he asked, letting one of his hands move to skim Enjolras’s shoulder. Enjolras let the fingers rest there for a minute before angling his shoulders away.

“We just want to get the check.”          

Joshua shook his head. “It’s on the house.”

Enjolras’s eyebrows shot up. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. It’s your guys’ first time here, and first time customers never pay. Besides, Maudie likes you.”

“Well, awesome. Tell her thanks for me.” Enjolras shooed Joshua’s hands again before standing up, circling around behind him and cupping one hand under Molly’s elbow, wrapping the other around her back. He helped her stand up, and led her out of the restaurant, ignoring Joshua’s attempts at asking him out on a date, or at least scoring his phone number for a quick lay.

Somehow, Enjolras managed to ignore all of his cries, and got Molly out to the car without much more of a struggle. It was a good thing, too, as two minutes after getting to the car, Molly was fast asleep.

Enjolras looked over at her and smiled softly before making the drive back to the Partridge house.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

8

     

As the hours passed, things in the house had grown more and more tense as Eponine and Grantaire waited for their daughter to return home. They had no idea what they would say to her, but sitting together in the living room was doing nothing for their nerves. Grantaire watched the clock, twittling his thumbs and keeping track of how much wine Eponine drank. (She was on her third glass in a twenty-three minute period.)

When the door finally opened, Grantaire and Eponine jumped up and pretended to be busy so that Molly would not know the effect of her surprise on her parents, as they were both sure that that was what she feared the most. Eponine rushed into the kitchen and pulled out a box of noodles and a Tupperware container full of the homemade sauce that she had made that morning, before Molly had arrived the first time. Grantaire went to his office and shook his computer mouse to awaken the computer before opening his email account and clicking on the first one that caught his eye.

By the time Grantaire had finished filing his newest clients, a young couple by the names of Andrew and Rory Ingalls-Cohan, in on all of the houses that fit their budget, dinner was ready. Grantaire closed the server and made his way down to the kitchen, his eyes wandering over where Molly and Enjolras had already been seated.

“How was your day, honey?” Grantaire asked his daughter as he, too, sat down, leaning over to her and kissing her on the temple.

Molly smiled at him, and placed a hand on the front of her belly as she spoke, “It was good, we hung out with Kate and Larson for a little bit and then we tried that new diner across the street from Gram and Gramps' old house. Have you been there yet?”

Grantaire shook his head before he looked at Eponine. “I don't think I have. What about you, Meri?”

Eponine was too in her own world to respond. Her eyes were glued unblinkingly to Molly's belly, and she was biting down on her lower lip in disapproval. Grantaire cleared his throat and tried again. “Sweetheart?”

Eponine startled, and she looked at Grantaire with wide eyes. “Sorry, what?”’

“Molly asked if you've tried that diner by your parents' old house.”

Eponine thought for a moment before shaking her head. “No, I don't believe I have.” She scooped some of the spaghetti on her plate before passing the bowl to Enjolras, her sights immediately setting into him like a hungry hawk on a field mouse as he took out a serving. “So, Enjolras, how is it that you know our daughter?”

Enjolras, who had begun to zone out while scooping his dinner onto his plate, looked up with a look of confusion on his face. When he realized what Eponine had asked, he said, “Uhm, we met in one of our anthropology classes my sophomore year of college, when Molly was a freshman.”

“Oh, so you are studying anthropology? What are you looking to do career-wise?” Grantaire could hear the unspoken question lingering in the air. _How are you going to support our daughter and this baby?_

Enjolras shook his head. “Actually, I graduated last weekend with a degree in Biochemistry. I don't have a job lined up yet, but I have some interviews to go to over the next couple of weeks. My _minor_ is in anthropology, though.”

Eponine pursed her lips and nodded before sending a pointed look Grantaire’s way. She clearly wanted him to ask some questions, as well. He thought for a few seconds and took a big bite of his spaghetti before interlacing his fingers and asking, “Is your family from Oregon? Or did you move there for school?”

Enjolras lifted a hand up to the back of his neck sheepishly, his cheeks flushing a pale pink from all the attention being focus on him. “I moved there. I'm from Nebraska, originally. My parents still live there, but all of us kids are scattered around the country, now. My cousin and his husband are buying a house here, though, so I’m planning on moving to St. Louis full-time and staying with them for a little while, until I can get a place on my own.” He smiled softly. “Something about St. Louis has always appealed to me, especially with everything that Molly has told me about it.”

Grantaire mentally agreed that St. Louis was great, but at hearing the Enjolras planned on moving away from Eugene, Oregon, he narrowed his eyes. Enjolras wasn't going to stay with Molly to help take care of his grandson or granddaughter? Why? That definitely wasn’t the kind of thing that Grantaire wanted to be hearing from his potential son-in-law.

Eponine seemed to be thinking the same thing. She looked over at Eponine with a question on her eyes. “Honey, after the baby comes . . . are you going to finish your education here? When Enjolras moves?”

Molly gave her mother a strange look before shaking her head. “I have an apartment, remember? Besides, Jolie and her husband had a baby a few months ago, and since she's staying at home with Vaughn, she offered to watch my baby when I'm at class or work.”

Eponine cleared her throat uncomfortably. “Oh.”

For the rest of the meal, no one said anything, other than Kieran rambling about something that she had done earlier that day with Eponine's baby sister, Arnie, who was fifteen. When the meal was over, and Eponine had started cleaning up, Grantaire tried to make light of the tense air by suggesting his favorite summertime activity. A campfire.

When everyone agreed, he went to the backyard, and set off to work.

 

***

Forty minutes later, Grantaire had set up the fire pit, and had a strong flame beginning to roar up from the stones. He had also gone through the pantry and found everything that they would need to make s'mores. Molly decided at the last minute to stay inside to watch a movie with her mother, but Kieran and Enjolras jumped at the chance to pig out on toasted marshmallows.

Grantaire poked the fire with a large stick before handing his daughter and his guest long forks. He kept one for himself, and made sure that his marshmallows were low enough on the prongs before thrusting the metal directly into the center of flames.

Enjolras made a noise of disgust. Grantaire looked over at him and raised an eyebrow. “Can I help you?”

“How can you burn your marshmallow like that? It should be tanned, not charred.” He stuck his marshmallows an inch above the flame to prove his point.

Grantaire rolled his eyes. He opened his mouth to respond, but he was stopped by Kieran pulling her gooey, burnt marshmallow off the prong and throwing it in Enjolras's open, yawning mouth. Enjolras quickly closed his mouth and forced himself to chew, his jaw quickly becoming stiff and rendering his speech nearly impossible.

Once he was able to open his mouth, he let out a long puff of air and stuck his tongue out. “Blech. That's disgusting.”

“You're nuts.” Kieran took another marshmallow and stuck in back into the fire. Grantaire pulled his own out and put his s'more together. He took a big bite before looking over at Kieran. “Do you know what time Amanda and her father are picking you up tomorrow?”

Kieran nodded. “Yeah, they are picking me up at one so Amanda and I can go to the mall before the party. I think that Mr. Edd and Mr. Kevin are going out on a date while we are at the mall.”

“All right. Behave yourself at the mall, you hear?”

Kieran rolled her eyes. Grantaire hit his knee against hers before looking back at Enjolras. “So, what got you into studying biochem? I personally always hated both of those subjects separately, let alone mixed.”

Enjolras chuckled. He moved to run a hand through his wavy blond hair. When he moved, the bottom of his shirt moved to reveal a sliver of the smooth skin of his belly. Grantaire’s gaze drifted down, his eyes skimming the dark-purple waistband of Enjolras’s boxers and locking onto his dark-blond happy trail. He felt his mouth begin to grow damp and his heart start to race as Enjolras leaned over to the side to rest his elbow on the arm of the chair, his shirt and jeans further separating to reveal his sharp hipbones.

Grantaire swallowed and shook his head, trying his hardest to do whatever it took to make his thoughts pure again. He couldn’t be thinking about his daughter’s boyfriend like that. It just wasn’t right.

No matter how hard he tried to convince himself of that, though, as Enjolras started to talk about what led him to his line of study, Grantaire found his attention now focused solely on Enjolras’s lips. They were dark-red, plump, and there was a little bit of white goo stuck to his lip from where Kieran’s marshmallow had glued his mouth shut. The goo kept sticking to his top lip, and whenever his mouth stretched wide, it stretched like a strand of spider silk between a pair of trees.

Grantaire bit down hard on his lip and shook his head again. He tuned back in to what Enjolras was saying to realize that the young man had asked him a question. “I’m sorry, what?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t say anything. Kieran told you that she was going inside and going to bed.”

Grantaire looked at the now-empty seat next to Enjolras. “Oh.” He leaned back in his chair and reached his hand up to his mouth to lick off a bit of chocolate that had unknowingly melted onto his pinky finger, his tongue darting out and tracing along the digit to get all of the sweet paste.

Enjolras made a strangled noise in his throat. Grantaire looked over at him to see that his cheeks had flushed a dark red, and he was gripping the arms of the wired chair tightly. “Everything all right?”

“Yeah.” Enjolras’s voice was strained. “Uhm, can you pass me the marshmallows? I’m going to make another s’more.”

“Yeah, definitely.” Grantaire picked up the bag from off the ground next to his chair. He took out two of the puffs for himself before passing the bag over. Grantaire skewered his marshmallows, and stuck them into the fire, his mouth already watering at the thought of his second s’more.

Unfortunately, no matter how delicious the campfire dessert was, the tense air that had developed between Enjolras and him made the food difficult to stomach. It did make him glad, however, when Enjolras started to yawn.

“Here, let me show you where you’re going to be sleeping tonight,” Grantaire offered, taking Enjolras’s long fork and pairing it with his own. He closed the bag of marshmallows and stood up.

Once Enjolras had been situated in Danny’s room, Grantaire let out a heavy breath, his shoulders dropping. He made his way to Eponine and his room. Eponine was sitting up in bed with a book, her reading glasses low on her nose and the bedside lamp illuminating the room.

Grantaire let out a groan before collapsing on the bed, his head immediately going to Eponine’s lap and her hand into his hair.

For several minutes, Grantaire did nothing but lie there. Eventually, he said, “I’m going to miss this, once the girls find out.”

Eponine marked her page before leaning down and kissing Grantaire on the head. “You know, Brent and I talked about it the other night, and he’s more than all right with us spending time together and being affectionate with one another, so not everything has to change.”

“I don’t just mean the affection. The girls are going to hate us.”

Eponine’s hand froze, and she shook her head. She didn’t answer for several minutes, and several different expressions flitted across her face while she considered all of the different outcomes with the girls.

When she started to speak again, it wasn’t about the divorce. It was about Enjolras. “So, what do we think about Molly’s . . . friend?” She shook her head. “I knew that Molly had a male friend named Enjolras, but for some reason it just didn’t click when she told me that she was bringing someone home with her.”

“Yeah, me neither. ‘Enjie’ is such a common of a nickname for ‘Enjica,’ I just imagined it was a girl.” Grantaire’s mind immediately flashed back to the brief expanse of skin he saw down at the campfire, but he was able to push away the thoughts rather quickly when he remembered the state Enjolras had put his daughter in. “He seems nice. I don’t like that he isn’t going to stick around Eugene to take care of our grandchild.”

Eponine’s hand started moving again. “Molly and I talked about it, and he isn’t the father. He has to be someone special if she was willing to bring him home to stay with us for an entire month-and-a-half, though. Even if she was nervous about telling us about the baby, she wouldn’t have just brought some random guy into our home.”

Grantaire nodded. He closed his eyes and thought back to his life with Eponine, and how similar things were for Molly. They were both twenty-one when Danny was born, and Eponine had had her twenty-first at the end of September. Molly, however, seemed adamant to finish her schooling, while Grantaire and Eponine took the opposite route and moved back home with Eponine’s parents before pursing alternate ways of finishing their educations.

Eponine, too, was silent for several minutes, until she said, “I learned a few other things about this baby, too, if you’re interested.”

Grantaire opened his eyes and looked up at his ex-wife. “Of course I’m interested. This will be my first grandchild.”

Eponine smirked. “I know.” She winked and stuck her tongue out playfully. Grantaire stuck his out in response. “Anyway, Molly is due September nineteenth, she was waiting to find out the gender until she told us, so she is finding out at her appointment in a few weeks, and she doesn’t know who the father is.”

Grantaire shot up. “She what?”

Eponine nodded. “Yeah.”

Grantaire shook his head, his eyes wide with disbelief, and his stomach churning. His beautiful baby girl, made into a mother by some nameless, faceless man. How could she have let something like that happen? He thought that they had taught her better than that. They had always told her that her body was a temple, and that she should treat it with the utmost respect. He didn’t know about Eponine, but having sex either with a guy she never learned the name of, or with too many guys to know who she had sex with during the prime of her month, was definitely the opposite of their teachings.

He ground his teeth, trying to keep his anger at bay at this mystery man. Well, he couldn’t be mad about Enjolras not sticking around now, could he? And if they were a couple, maybe some space would be good for them. At the very least, maybe it would keep Eponine and him from getting a second grandchild any time soon.

Grantaire sighed and reached over to squeeze Eponine’s thigh. “I think I’m just going to go to bed and not think about it.”

Eponine snorted.”Okay. Goodnight, sweetheart.”

“Goodnight.”

Grantaire moved away from Eponine’s leg and up to the pillows. He rolled onto his side and, eventually, fell into a fitful sleep.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

9

 

Enjolras flipped back and forth in bed, letting out a groan and pulling the blankets up over his eyes. It was strange, but even the slightest bit of light streaming through the curtains into the room was enough to keep him tossing and turning for hours. Back in Oregon, he had thick curtains that blocked out all of the light, but here, he'd have to take something to help him sleep.

He got out of the bed and grabbed his bag, opening one of the side compartments where he kept his Benadryl, his Epipen, and his inhaler. He uncapped the Benadryl and pulled out two of the chalky pink pills, popping them into his mouth and forcing them down without the aid of water. The pills coated his tongue and left a sour aftertaste in his throat, but at least they would make him tired enough to ignore the light.

He contemplated lying back down, but he knew that if he did, all he would think about was the way that Grantaire's tongue looked darting out to lick at the chocolate that had melted into his finger. He had always had a bit of a thing for older men (take Alistair, for example), but this wasn't an ordinary man that he was seeing. He would be staying in Grantaire's house for six weeks, and it wouldn't do him any good to spend those six weeks crushing on him. He knew what it was like to develop an interest on a housemate, and it never turned out pretty.

Almost two years before Enjolras moved in to Courfeyrac's spare bedroom, he had been living with this guy named Kyle. They had been paired together by some on-campus virtual roommate portal, and had gotten along great, until Enjolras realized that the things he felt for his roommate were more than just friendly. He had managed to ignore it, at first, but eventually the feelings got too strong, and he ended up ruining their friendship one night when he had a little too much to drink. They spent the rest of the year avoiding one another, doing their best to ensure that the only time they were both in the room was when they were asleep.

Once freshman year ended, they never spoke again.

Enjolras shook his head, trying to rid himself of the thoughts. Thinking of Kyle would never do anything for him other than make him regret that he hadn't tried to talk things out, to argue that them having sex was just a drunken mistake, and didn't mean anything to Enjolras, just like it obviously didn't mean anything to Kyle.

Enjolras closed his eyes for a couple of long seconds before opening them again, knowing what he was going to do instead of stare at ceiling. He tiptoed over to the door and opened it, making sure that he wouldn't wake anyone up before creeping down the hall to Molly's room. He pressed his ear against the door and listened for signs of her being awake before knocking and loudly whispering, “Mols, it's me. Can I come in?”

Molly didn't verbally answer, but she came over and pulled the door open a crack, which was enough for Enjolras. He pushed it open the rest of the way and went in to see that Molly was reclining in a nest of pillows, her laptop open in front of her with some movie blaring from the speakers.

He sat down next to her and knocked his shoulder against hers. “What are you watching?”

Molly paused the movie and moved her mouse so that the title information showed on her screen. “ _Cruel and Unusual_. It popped up on my Netflix recommendations, so I figured I'd give it a try. It's pretty good, so far.”

“What's it about?”

“Some man who killed his wife and is now destined to repeat her murder on a loop for all of eternity.”

“Damn. That's fucked.” Enjolras scooted over so that he could see the screen better before playing the movie. Molly was already over halfway done with it, but Enjolras picked up on the plot and the characters pretty quickly.

Forty-five minutes went by fast, and the movie was over before Enjolras even had time to dwell on the minutes creeping past. “Do you want to watch something else?” he asked, pulling the laptop back towards them.

He went back to Molly's browse list and started to scan through the titles before realizing that Molly had never answered him. He glanced over to see that she was fast asleep, her right arm pillowed under her head, and “Kieran's” Robert Pattinson doll wrapped up tightly in the left.

Enjolras chuckled and shut the laptop screen, plugging the device into the charger and placing it under the bed. He covered her up with her comforter, making sure that her belly was protected and that she would be warm enough before going back into his room. Enjolras knew that to an outsider, it would appear that he was treating her like he was a concerned boyfriend, but ever since they had met, he had viewed her like a younger sister. Ever since he had lost . . .

No, he wasn’t going to go there tonight. He was _happy_ being somewhere new, and he wasn’t going to ruin that with one wandering thought. He shook his head and, when the Benadryl _finally_ kicked in, he fell asleep.

. . . and he stayed asleep for all of one hour and twelve minutes, when he finally just said “screw it,” and got up to go for a long exploratory run. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10

 

The next morning, Grantaire woke up two hours before his alarm. He dreamt, for the thousandth time, about the accident, only this time, rather than Danny dying, it was Molly and a beautiful toddler with long blonde hair and big gray eyes that were in the car. Grantaire was the driver, and he had been making faces at his granddaughter in the mirror. He was so deeply engrossed into her laugh that he didn't notice that he had run a red light until it was too late.

He went down to kitchen and got a glass of water and a bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream. He sat down at the table, kicking his worn house slippers off and scratching at the bare skin directly above his hipbones.

He yawned as he took the first bite of the ice cream, which turned into a grimace as the cold sugar hit the cavity that he'd been procrastinating on getting filled. He knew that the pain would fade, but he needed to distract himself in the meantime. He clicked on his phone and went to his Kindle app, opened his newest Victor Cohan book and began to read.

When Grantaire had finished half of his ice cream and had just gotten to the part where the characters had started to become truly interesting, he was startled back into the real world by the sound of the front door opening.

Grantaire leaned back in his chair, his eyes narrowed as he tried to gauge if this intruder was a friend or a foe. He was close enough to the utensil drawer that, if need-be, he could lean back and pull out a steak knife for defense.

For several moments, he couldn't figure out who the silhouette in the front hall was, and he began to grow nervous. He reached back as quietly as he could and grabbed a knife, just in case.

“Who's there?” he called out, trying to keep his voice low so that he wouldn't wake anyone up.

The figure chuckled. “Sorry, Mr. Partridge it's just me.” Enjolras stepped into the light of the kitchen with a shy smile on his face.

Grantaire let out a breath. “Oh, hi Enjolras.” He glanced at his watch to see that it was just after five. “What are you doing up so early?”

“I went for a run.” He ran a hand through his sweat-soaked hair before going over to the fridge as getting a bottle of water.

Grantaire's eyes began to drift the moment that Enjolras turned away. He was wearing navy compression shorts that went to the middle of his thigh, as well a tight gray shirt that was soaked so thoroughly with sweat that he could see the solid lines of Enjolras's muscles. He had hard pecs and shapely abs, and his back dipped in on either side of his spine, just above the waistband of his running shorts.

Enjolras walked over to the pantry to find something to snack on, and Grantaire feasted his eyes on Enjolras's strong legs and tight glute muscles.

His compression shorts fit him like a second pair of skin.

God, it was taking everything that Grantaire had not to stride across the room and press Enjolras against the counter. He wanted to thrust his leg between Enjolras's and listen to his moans. He wanted to nibble on Enjolras's neck, and taste his—

No. Grantaire couldn't think like that. This was his baby girl's boyfriend that he was ogling. If he wanted to stare at some runner's ass, he could go to the park or the gym. He didn't need to lock his eyes on Enjolras.

Enjolras, however, didn't seem to care about Grantaire's wandering eyes. If anything, he tried to hold his attention longer, smirking and blushing as he stretched, arching his back and showing the hard planes of his stomach.

Grantaire blushed, and turned his gaze to his ice cream. He cleared his throat before saying, “There's more flavors of ice cream in the freezer, if you'd like some.”

“Okay. Where are the bowls?”

“The cabinet to the left of the stove.”

Enjolras got out a bowl, and helped himself to some spumoni ice cream. He refilled his water bottle and sat down, giving Grantaire a smile.

Up close, Enjolras was even more attractive than Grantaire thought he was. His grey eyes had specks of green and gold, and there was a light expanse of freckles littering the bridge of his nose. There were small bags under his eyes, and there was a small scar that went from the corner of his left eye to an inch away from his ear.

Grantaire didn't realize he was staring at the scar until Enjolras lifted a hand uncomfortably and tried to hide it. Grantaire coughed. “I'm sorry.”

Enjolras shook his head, moving his hand and touching the puckered skin gingerly. “I fell into a thorn bush when I was eight. My sister and I were racing, and untied-shoelaces got the best of me.”

Grantaire chuckled. He pulled back the neckline of his shirt to show a similar scar. “I ran into a tree on my sled when I was fourteen.” He put his shirt back and took the last few bites of his ice cream. He ate them slowly, trying to make the moment last just a few seconds longer.

Enjolras nodded at Grantaire’s admission before he, too, seemed to slow down his consumption of the sweet treat. “I did that once. Broke my ribs. My parents didn't believe me, even after I was bruised black and blue.”

Unfortunately, the bowls were empty all too soon, and Enjolras gave Grantaire a smile. He pushed the bowl away before standing up, his shirt rolling up his stomach slightly.  “I should go shower and try to get a little more shut-eye.”

Grantaire tried not to focus on Enjolras’s skin, and nodded. “Yeah, I need to start getting ready for work soon, too.”

Grantaire watched as Enjolras turned on his heel and started towards the door. He tried his hardest not to stare, but when Enjolras started to swing his hips sensually as he tried to stretch his tight hip flexors, it was damn near impossible not to feast his eyes on Enjolras’s rear.

After a few seconds, he stopped trying at all.

 

***

 

Enjolras’s mind was whirring as he made his way upstairs. God, the way that Grantaire was looking at him . . . he hadn’t been so turned on by a mere expression in a long, _long_ time. Enjolras had done everything that he could to make sure that he kept on holding Grantaire’s gaze, be it working the angles of his body that he _knew_ he had, or flaunting the way that his running clothes fit his lithe frame.

When he saw Grantaire in the kitchen, he honestly wasn’t expecting anything to come from it. He thought that, maybe, Grantaire had an inkling of an interest for guys, but he was married, and the way that he looked at Eponine wasn’t the type of emotion that could be faked. The way his eyes swirled with lust, though . . . there was no denying it. He wanted Enjolras, and by God, did Enjolras want him back.

Enjolras wasn’t really the type of man to sleep with someone without being in a relationship with them, but Grantaire was attractive enough that if Grantaire had been single, and Enjolras had met him in a bar . . . well, let’s just say that Enjolras would agree to go home with him without giving it much thought.

He went into the bedroom and grabbed a fresh pair of boxers, basketball shorts, and a tee shirt before going into the bathroom and turning on the shower. He stripped off his clothes and got under the spray, immediately looking up into the water and letting it wash away his sexual urges along with the sweat and grit that had built up all over his body during the course of his run.

The longer that he stood under the heat, the more guilty he began to feel about the desires that he was having. Grantaire wasn’t some random man in the club that he was aching to touch. He was Molly’s father, and it wasn’t fair to her for Enjolras to be fantasizing about the man like that. No, he just needed to push the thoughts away, and remember that if he wanted a boyfriend, there were plenty of other men in this city that he could try and be with. He wanted to live in St. Louis long-term, anyway, so it only made sense for him to try and find someone in the town . . . someone who wasn’t Grantaire.

Enjolras shook his head and finished washing and rinsing himself off. He turned off the water and got out, grabbing one of the fluffy scarlet towels and drying himself off. He pulled the clean clothes on and wiped the condensation off the mirror. He put the towel back on to the rack and picked up his running clothes. He made sure that he had everything before making his way back to the bedroom.

Enjolras tossed his clothes into a hamper in the corner of the room and threw himself onto the bed. He stared at the ceiling for several minutes before rolling onto his side and pulling one of the blankets over his body up to his hips.

He didn’t think he would fall asleep all that quickly, however. Now that he had calmed his libido down, he couldn’t help but wonder about the original occupant of the room that he was staying in. Molly had told him that she had a brother, of course, but that was about the extent of what she had told him. There had been a few stories here and there about things that had happened between them when they were growing up, but he couldn’t think of anything specific that really told Enjolras who he was.

Enjolras contemplated between trying to keep sleeping, and snooping around the room for some sort of clues.

He went with the second option.

Enjolras flipped the lights back on and looked around the room, his eyes scanning for any sort of pictures that he missed his first night in the room. He didn’t see any. He went over and opened the closet, flicking on the light at the top of the walk-in and looking across the shelves.

The first thing that Enjolras noticed was how perfectly the closet was organized. It didn’t look like the closet of any young man that he had ever known. There weren’t very many clothes hanging from the rafters, but those that were, were color-coded and pushed towards the back of the closet. There were a few baseball bats and gloves put away neatly in one of the corners, and a stack of books balanced precariously on a shelf.

Enjolras looked closer at the book and realized that they were photo albums. He grabbed the one on the top and took it back out into the main part of the bedroom. He sat down on the bed and flipped to the first page, where a picture of a handsome young man and a young woman looked back at him with smiles on their faces and their arms wrapped around one another. He looked at the inside of the front cover and saw an inscription: _To my prince. Happy anniversary. Alyse._

Enjolras looked back and forth from the inscription to the photograph before flipping through some of the other pages. He grew bored of that quickly, though, and swapped the anniversary album for one that looked like it was bought back in the 1980s.

Sure enough, when Enjolras started looking at the pictures, he definitely knew that the pictures were from early on in Eponine and Grantaire’s relationship. There were several of them at different events, smiles on their faces and their peers surrounding them. There were pictures just of Eponine and just of Grantaire, as well. Enjolras didn’t really pay much attention to the ones just of Eponine (although, he did notice how remarkably similar Molly looked to her mother). The photos of Grantaire, though, held his attention, and immediately made him wish that he had known Grantaire back when he was this person.

He flipped through the book, taking notice of the different ways that Grantaire smiled, and how the corners of his eyes crinkled up in the photos that were taken candidly. He was beautiful.

Enjolras’s favorite picture, however, was one of Grantaire and another man. It was just of the two of them, sitting on a table, shoulder to shoulder. Their heads were leaned towards each other. It wasn’t obvious that there was something more to the image than just two friends sitting together, but their position, combined with the way that Grantaire had been staring so hungrily at Enjolras earlier, made him think Grantaire and this mystery man had been more than just friends.

Enjolras stared at image, images swirling in his head as he imagined the ways that Grantaire would have touched the gorgeous dark-haired man next to him in the photo, and the way that he would have touched Grantaire back.

While Enjolras’s libido had gone away for forty-five minutes or so, the thoughts stirred up by the image brought it back full-force. He stared down at the picture and ran his fingers along the inside of his thigh before taking his cock into his hand and giving it a few soft strokes before really getting into it, and letting his imagination pull him in to the experience.

Enjolras stared deep into photo-Grantaire’s eyes, his hand moving faster as he matched the expressions on Grantaire’s face from earlier to the youthfulness of his face here. He could imagine Grantaire running his fingers over him and pulling off his running clothes, kissing him down his neck and grabbing his cock, thrusting his own hips against Enjolras’s before sliding down his body and sucking Enjolras off.

It didn’t take long before Enjolras had reached the edge, and he came staring deep into the photograph’s eyes. He got up and grabbed the tee shirt that he had worn on his run and used it to clean himself, the bed, and the shiny photo pages. He tossed the shirt back over to the hamper and put the book back before turning the light off. He maneuvered his way around the room in the dark and managed to get back into bed. He pulled the blanket back up over himself and snuggled into the pillow, sleep coming to him a lot quicker now that he had gotten rid of most of the tension in his body.

Within minutes, he had fallen fast asleep, Grantaire and he continuing to create the beast with two backs in his dreamland.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

11

 

Later that same day Grantaire went to his office. He was redoing his pre-appointment paper for the Ingalls-Cohan family for the sixth time, and he kept making stupid, rookie mistakes, like spelling their names wrong, or entering in the wrong amount for their budget.

He groaned as he, once again, somehow managed to transcribe Rory's name as “Riley.” He wasn't sure how, because he was looking at the keyboard as he wrote, but he'd entered Rory's name as every R-starting name in the book. Ryan. Robert. Ridley. Rhyder. Remington.

He let out another groan. He needed to get his mind back on track, but it was nearly impossible when images of Enjolras kept coming to the forefront.

The big thing that Grantaire didn't understand was why his mind was so wrapped up in Enjolras. He only just met him, for Pete’s sake. There was nothing there besides a slight attraction to Enjolras's cute, muscular, toned, ungodly hot . . .

Okay, maybe it was more than a slight attraction.

Grantaire sank his head into his hands, and let out a shaky breath. Man, he sure was fucked.

He had to get his mind off of Enjolras. It'd only been a day since he met the man, so it should be pretty easy to get his mind off him, right? It'd take one man, maybe two, to get his mind back to normal. Eponine had been trying to set him up with a friend of a friend for six months or so, so maybe if he gave him a call, everything would go back to normal. He pulled out his phone before he could talk himself out of it and found Eponine's number. “Hey, Meri. Yeah, work is fine . . . I'm ready. I'm going to call Chris.”

 

***

 

“ . . . And then Jason told Mary that if her tone was any saltier, she'd be a sardine!”

Grantaire faked a chuckle, swirling his glass of scotch and picking at his brown-butter pasta. Man, this guy was boring. He was sweet, and he was most definitely hot, especially with his fiery red hair and striking green eyes, but he was just so _dull_.

Chris stopped laughing to himself and leaned forward on his elbows, his fists tucked under his chin, his eyes piercing through Grantaire. “Okay, enough about me, what about you? Eponine told me that you're a real estate agent. Do you like it?”

Grantaire nodded, his shoulders dropping with relief at the realization that talking about himself meant that Chris would stop boring him so much. “Yeah, I do. Sometimes clients are too much to handle, but for the most part, it's enjoyable.”

“I bet it gives you plenty of places to fool around,” Chris joked, sending Grantaire a wink and kicking his foot out to wrap around Grantaire's ankle. Grantaire felt uncomfortable, but he went along with it, letting Chris rub his ankle and calf before moving his foot up higher, to the inside of Grantaire's thigh.

Chris smirked, a glint in his eyes. “So, tell me, Grantaire. Do you have a boyfriend?”

Grantaire shook his head. “Actually, the last time I had a boyfriend was my first year of college.”

Chris's eyes widened, and he looked Grantaire up and down. “Seriously? No one wants a hottie like you? How is that even possible?”

Grantaire held his left hand up, wiggling his ring finger. “Married, remember?”

Chris shook his head. “Bullshit. You know as well as I do that Eponine and you have been divorced for almost a year now.”

“No comment.”

Chris rolled his eyes. “Yeah, okay.” He paused to eat a big bite of his tortellini before asking, “So, since you haven't had a boyfriend in almost thirty years, does that mean that it's been almost twenty years since you've been with a man?”

Grantaire didn't say anything. It's not that he didn't feel comfortable with the question, because he really didn't care, but he wasn't quite sure how to answer. He'd had a few kisses here and there, and he'd given a quick hand-job to some guy that he met in a bar, but there wasn't anything monumental that he could think of. Even when Eponine had told him that she wanted to end the marriage and Grantaire told her he was pretty sure he was gay, he hadn't rushed out and found some pretty face to experiment with.

Chris took Grantaire's silence as confirmation of his question, and made a quiet noise in the back of his throat before saying, “Well, I live alone, if you want to fix that . . . We don't have to go all the way, but fuck do I want to suck you off.”

Grantaire thought about it for a moment before nodding. He wasn't feeling any sort of connection to Chris, and he highly doubted that they would _ever_ see each other again if Grantaire had anything to say about it, but if he wanted to get Enjolras off his mind, he needed to do something stupid and sexual to calm his urges down. “Sure. Let's go to your place.”

Chris waved the waiter over for the check, his foot once again wandering along the inside of Grantaire's thigh and up to his crotch. He caressed him lightly with his sock-covered foot, smirking when he felt Grantaire begin to grow hard beneath his toes. He pressed harder, his toes massaging Grantaire's heavy sack. It relieved a bit of the constant ache that Grantaire had had since the day before, but God did he want more.

He needed someone to squeeze his cock, to run their fingers lightly over the sensitive head while he moaned in ecstasy. He needed to feel a man's body move in tandem to his own, to feel each other's cocks rub their own as they pressed against one another. He needed to get out of here, he needed to fuck, and he needed Enjolras to stop running in circles around his head, those little compression shorts and tight shirt disappearing the deeper into the dream that Grantaire got.

Chris may be one of the dullest people on the planet, but hopefully the things he could do with his mouth would overpower anything and everything that Grantaire had ever hoped for.

Grantaire followed Chris back to his apartment with knots in his stomach and a dry mouth. He knew it was stupid, but he felt like a teenage boy on prom night, about to have sex for the first time. If he was a virgin, that'd be one thing, but Greg and him had sex dozens of times while they were together. Yes, that had been over twenty years ago, but he still knew how shit worked.

He parked his SUV next to Chris's Buick and climbed out, his legs starting to weaken. He followed Chris into the apartment building and up to the second floor.

Grantaire had barely stepped through the threshold when he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He pulled it put to see that Eponine had texted him.

_Hey, stud. How's the date going?_

Grantaire didn't answer. A few minutes later, it buzzed again. He decided to ignore the message, and pushed the device back down into his pocket before going over to Chris's dark-green leather sofa and taking a seat.

He began to twiddle his thumbs uncomfortably while Chris went and grabbed a few beers, and a Tupperware container of something that looked like it was supposed to be brownies, although it was more of one big brown glob than anything.

Regardless, when Chris set down the container and handed him a beer, he reached in and scooped out a glob. He sniffed it before taking a bite.

Chris sat down next to him, and scooped out a pile for himself. “I promise, these looked like actual brownies earlier. I left them in my car and they melted.”

Grantaire pursed his lips and nodded. He wasn't trying to be rude, but he couldn't have cared less about what Chris had or had not done. Hell, he didn't even want to do this friendly chit-chat bullshit. He wanted to go into Chris's room and fuck (or be fucked, he wasn't picky), and forget all about the man staying across the hall from him, and if Chris was making small-talk, that's not what they were doing. Chris was the one who suggested going back to his place, so why weren't they doing anything?

“So . . . I believe you said you wanted to suck me off,” Grantaire said after a few more bites, his patience growing thin.

Chris chuckled and nodded. “Impatient, are we? Here I am, trying to make this date enjoyable for you, and you just want to use me for sex.”

A wave of guilt washed over Grantaire. “That's not what I mea—”

Chris cut him off, dropping down to the floor in front of Grantaire and leaning forward, pulling him into a deep kiss. He put his hand on the back of Grantaire's neck and moved his thumb in small circles before pressing his fingertips in harder and pulling Grantaire closer.

After a minute or so of kissing, Chris moved his freehand off the cushion next to Grantaire and put it on his thigh, moving it from his knee, to his inner thigh, and up higher. Once he got to Grantaire's crotch, he unbuttoned and unzipped Grantaire's beige work pants, ghosting his fingers over his cloth-covered cock until he had started to get hard.

Grantaire moaned when Chris pulled back the flap of his boxers and wrapped his hand around his semi-hard cock before breaking the kiss and leaning down to lick at the head. He waited until Grantaire was fully-hard before engulfing him in his hot, wet lips and sucking, narrowing his mouth as much as he could.

Grantaire reached down and tangled his fingers in Chris's hair, pushing him down further until the tip of Chris's nose was buried in Grantaire's thick pubic hair. He closed his eyes and tried to get into it, blocking out the rest of his thoughts and forgetting where he was.

As Chris sucked, all Grantaire could think was one thing. _Fuck, I hope this works._

 

***

As it turned out, it did not work, and Grantaire came with Enjolras's name on his lips. Chris gave him and amused look and a smirk before saying, “Ah, I guess there will be no second date then?”

Needless to say, Grantaire couldn't wait to get out of there. He texted Eponine to tell her about the failed date before going to his favorite local ice cream place and buying a waffle cone. It was a pretty night, and there was a small park just a block away so Grantaire decided to walk there to enjoy his pity-treat.

He sat down on a bench next to a man-made duck pond and stared out across the water towards the sunset. It was beautiful and, in a way, it made him miss Eponine. They had gotten married by a sunset-lit pond, the water glowing in shades of red and orange. He had worn simple beige slacks and a red button down nearly the same shade as the lake, and she was wearing a flowing ivory dress, her twenty-two week belly barely showing beneath the sheathed fabric. Her long honey hair hung around her frame in loose curls, and she had a crown of small, white daisies on her head instead of a veil.

It had been a small ceremony, made up of only his parents, her parents, her sisters, and a few of their closest friends. Neither of them had ever wanted anything extravagant, so it only made sense only to invite those few people. Their parents were happy that they were staying together for the baby, but even they knew that it wasn't true love between their children.

Grantaire was broken from his thoughts by a cold feeling on his leg. He looked down to see a large glob of ice cream sitting midway down his thigh and soaking through his jeans.

“Dammit,” Grantaire muttered, pushing the ice cream off with his hand before grabbing a pile of leaves to try and run away the rest of the liquid.

Grantaire had nearly gotten the leaves to work when a bottle of water and a fabric of some kind was thrust into his peripheral vision. He looked over to see Enjolras standing there, drenched in sweat, just like he had been that morning, only this time, he was shirtless.

Grantaire's mouth went dry, and his eyes immediately wandered away from the shirt in Enjolras's hand to his soft pecs and the long lines of his abs. He hasn't as ripped as Grantaire thought he was when he was wearing the muscle shirt, but the lower amount of muscles somehow managed to make him even more attractive.

Grantaire began to panic as he felt all of his blood begin to rush south. He quickly grabbed the water bottle from Enjolras and ripped his eyes away, trying to gesture with his hand that Enjolras needed to put his shirt back on. Enjolras understood, and pulled it back on before sitting down on the bench next to him.

Grantaire poured the water on his pants and scrubbed with his hand, his heart starting to race as the smell of sweat and diluted cologne hit his senses. He swallowed thickly, trying to make things feel less uncomfortable.

“So . . . You run a lot?” he asked, wincing as his voice cracked. He took a lick of his ice cream, keeping it from falling on to his pants again. He held the water bottle back out to Enjolras.

Enjolras took the bottle back from Grantaire and took a quick sip. “Normally I only go out once a day, but today I just . . . I don't know, I just felt the need to go out for a second run.”

Grantaire nodded. He used to run all the time, when the kids were younger, but over the last few years, it was a rarity that he stepped outside of his doorstep to run even a few feet. He told Enjolras as much.

Enjolras nodded. “Yeah, Molly told me that you ran the Iron Man triathlon in Hawaii when she was twelve or thirteen.”

“Yeah, I did.”

“Why did you stop? She said that you loved it.”

“I did.” Grantaire went quiet. He stared at the pond again, watching two male ducks battle it out for the rights of winning one of the females. He thought back to the day before, when he was going through Danny's room and making it presentable for their guest. _That_ was why he stopped running all those years ago. After the accident, Grantaire just couldn't work up the same passion that he once had. “Did . . . did Molly tell you about her brother?”

Enjolras shook his head. “She told me that I was staying in his old room from when he was a kid, but that's all she told me.”

“What did she say about where he is now?”

This time, it was Enjolras who went quiet. Grantaire looked over to see that he was staring at the ground and chewing on his lower lip, his eyebrows furrowed in thought. After a moment, he shook his head. “I don't remember her telling me anything about him, to be honest. When we first met, she said that it had been a while since she had talked to her brother, but she never really mentions him.” He looked up, concerned. “Why? Where is he?”

Grantaire took a deep breath, the racing of his heart from Enjolras being so close dropping to a crawl as he thought about his son. “He's dead, Enjolras. He died when he was twenty-two, when Molly was sixteen and Kieran was nine.” He let out that deep breath. “He decided to drive while intoxicated, and he crashed his car. He killed himself, his girlfriend, and two of their friends.”

Enjolras's eyes widened. “Jesus. And I'm . . . staying in his room?”

“Yeah.”

Enjolras exhaled through his nose. “Jesus. Why? I could have slept on the couch or something. Hell, I would have scraped up some money and stayed in a motel, if I had known. I still can, if you'd prefer.”

Grantaire shook his head. “No, you don't need to do that. I was the one who suggested that you stay in his room. Meri hates it, and I'm sure that Kieran and Molly are pretty damn pissed at me for giving you his room, but it's time that some happier memories took place there. It's been five years.”

Grantaire took the last bite of his cone and leaned back, crossing his arms over his stomach and grinding his teeth. “After he died, I just couldn't get myself to run anymore. We used to run together, and it just wasn't the same without him.”

“I get that.” Enjolras reached over and placed a comforting hand on Grantaire's thigh that made his racing heartbeat come back full swing. “I started running after my youngest sister died a few years back. I needed to find something to do to deal with my grief, and it was either run all my feelings out, or end up in the ground right beside her.”

“How did she die?”

“She killed herself.” His voice broke on the last word, and his breath turned shaky as tears began to well up in the corners of his eyes. Immediately, he went from being a gorgeous, sexy adult to being a vulnerable little kid in a serious need for comfort. “She had always suffered from depression, but none of us knew how bad it was until Katie, my older sister, called my mom to tell her she stopped by with my nephew to get some sugar and found Alexa's body hanging in her room. She was only eleven.”

Grantaire's eyes widened, and he reached down to lace his fingers with Enjolras's in comfort. Losing his son had been the worst experience of his life, but at least Danny had been an adult. He couldn't imagine losing a child so young. “Wow. I'm so sorry, Enjolras.”

“Yeah. We all just kind of left, after that. Katie and her husband move a few cities away, Marianne went to school in Texas, I went to school in Oregon, and Tyler got a job in Boise, Iowa.” He squeezed Grantaire’s hand before unlacing their fingers and opening his water bottle again. He took a sip before putting it back down. “Mom and Dad, they talked about moving away, but in the end they decided they just couldn’t do it.”

“Understandable. We talked about moving away, too, but it was the same for us. Danny grew up here, and he’s buried by my parents. It just didn’t make sense, leaving them all here while we left somewhere else to be happy.”

For the next several minutes, neither man said anything, content just to stare over the water. Eventually, though, when Grantaire could no longer keep his eyes from constantly wandering over to Enjolras’s drenched hair and tight shirt, he decided to ask Enjolras some more questions about himself. “So . . . besides running, what else are you in to?”

Enjolras thought for a minute before saying, “Uhm . . . writing, I guess? I mean, I kind of suck at it, but I really enjoy it.”

“Oh? What do you write?”

“Short stories, mostly, but I really want to write a novel, someday. I’ve started writing one a couple of times, but I always end up scrapping them by the time I get a few chapters in.” He shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess it’s more of a pipe dream than anything.”

Grantaire nodded. He had had a few of those himself, back before he accepted that things just weren’t going to work out the way he wanted. He had wanted to be a professional soccer player, or an actor. He had wanted to be one of those famous gay men, who weren’t afraid to tell the world exactly who they were, and who they loved. He wanted to travel the world, to see all the great wonders that so many people before him had seen.

When Danny was born, though, he knew that none of those things would ever happen. He was a father, he was a husband, and he had to find a way to support his family. His dreams were just that. Dreams. Eventually, yes, maybe he could travel the world, and now that he had admitted to himself and his ex-wife that he was gay, he at least could finally stop being so damn afraid all the time.

He shook his head, coming back to the conversation at hand. “You know, Enjolras, you’re still young. You have plenty of time to figure out how to write a book.” He adjusted on the bench, pulling his legs up under himself. “So . . . tell me an idea. Tell me something that you are considering writing.”

“Uhm . . . ” Enjolras looked down at his hands before looking back over the water, his lips screwed up to the side and his eyes squinting against the near-darkness of the sky. He chuckled under his breath and shook his head before looking back at Grantaire. “It’s going to sound stupid.”

“Indulge me.”

“So there’s this guy, Teddy, and he . . . well, I don’t know what he is yet, but I think he’s going to be a painter or a sculpture or something like that. Anywhere, there’s this invasion that comes to the Earth, of these alien-monster-spider things. Everyone in the town thinks that Teddy is nuts, and that he’s a nobody, but he, like, ends up being the one who ends up saving the whole world by making a deal with the spider-things that if they leave the world alone, then he will make an image of them for them, and also so there is a good picture of them in the history books in the future.”

Grantaire’s eyebrows shot up. Wow. He could _definitely_ see what Enjolras meant when he said that his idea sounded stupid. “Well, that sounds . . . interesting.”

Enjolras chuckled again. “Yeah, stupid. I know. It’s better than the last one I tried to write, though . . . it was about a man from some other planet, who moved to Earth to ‘get a new start,’ so to speak, and he thinks that plants are the dominant life force on the planet, because he lands somewhere that isn’t all that heavily populated, and he, like, tries to communicate with the plants and gets mad that they won’t answer. He doesn’t meet a human until, like, three-quarters of the way through the book, and when he does, he is totally shocked and confused and has to deal with changing his views of the Earth.”

“You know, that one actually doesn’t sound so bad. It’s actually something I’d consider reading.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Do you have any short stories that you particularly like, that you could tell me about?”

Enjolras thought for a minute before nodding. “Yeah, actually. I wrote this story, once, that has led to an outline of a book . . . do you want to hear about that?”

“Yeah, definitely.”

“It’s about this young woman named Emilie, who is super wealthy and lives in the nineteenth century. She falls in love with this girl named Elizabeth, but when they are kept apart, Emilie dresses in drag and follows her so that they can be together . . . well, kind of. There’s a lot more to it than that, and there’s like a ten year jump between Elizabeth leaving and Emilie following after here, but still. That’s the basis.”

“Well, that one sounds like a good idea, too.” Grantaire clapped Enjolras on the shoulder. “You know, you should really try to go with one of these ideas sometime, and see it all the way through. I mean, I don’t know anything about writing novels, or short stories, or anything like that, but I think that if you have a good idea, it shouldn’t be too horribly difficult for you to write it.”

Enjolras scoffed. “Yeah, I thought the same thing, until I started actually writing. It’s _way_ harder than that, apparently, cause I can’t keep characters in line worth shit, and I get stuck on the plot, like . . . by the end of the second or third chapter. I guess I just need more practice.”

“You said you have an outline for that one, right? Why don’t you try to go off that and outline the scenes or something? Maybe that’ll help you get it written.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Enjolras nudged Grantaire with his shoulder. “But hey, it’s getting late. I don’t know about you, but I still have to run the four miles home.”

“Do you want a ride?”

Enjolras shook his head. “I’ll see you at home, Grantaire. It was good talking to you.”

“Yeah, it was.”

Enjolras stood up. Grantaire watched him tighten his running shoes and take off at a jog back in the direction of the house, his mind spinning as he realized that this could quickly become more than just a physical attraction, if Enjolras and he kept talking like this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

12

 

By the time that four weeks had gone by, Grantaire’s attraction to Enjolras had evolved into a _massive_ crush. They had hung out around town a couple of times, and they spent between one and two hours almost every night talking. Granted, Kieran, or Molly, or Eponine was normally with them, but when Enjolras was speaking, Grantaire’s attention was focused solely on him. He had learned about what it was like for him to grow up in Nebraska, some of his strangest fears, and, most importantly, that he was most definitely _not_ Molly’s boyfriend.

Molly had admitted on the fourth or fifth night that she was home that she and Enjolras were _both_ single, and that she planned on raising her child on her own. Of course, Grantaire was very weary of his daughter’s announcement, but there was most definitely a large part of him that was feeling giddy about knowing that he was just interested in a _very_ attractive male, and not his potential son-in-law.

Now there was just the problem of figuring out if he liked guys.

Grantaire came up with the perfect plan to figure out that little tidbit of information. Molly had found herself a part-time job, and Kathy’s doctor had told her to cut back her hours due to complications with the pregnancy, so it only made sense that he gave those extra hours to Enjolras so he wasn’t just sitting around the house, bored out of his mind and, if it meant that they got some time to hang out and get to know one another better, it was all the better. Enjolras had jumped at the opportunity, especially when Grantaire promised him that he would pay him the same as he paid Kathy.

On Enjolras’s first day on the job, Grantaire finished getting ready for work, and went down to the kitchen, where Enjolras was already sitting down with a bowl of scrambled eggs in front of him. He was wearing a pair of black dress pants and a lavender polo, and had somehow managed to get his wavy blond hair to rest in soft curls against the tops of his cheeks. His lower lip kept getting caught between his teeth, and it was swollen and glistening from the bites. He looked beautiful.

“Hey,” Grantaire said, grabbing a bowl and the cereal box. He filled it and poured some milk in before taking it over and sitting down across from Enjolras. “You ready for your first day?”

Enjolras looked up from his meal and smiled. He scooped another bite of cereal into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully before answering. “Yeah, I think so. It’s mostly just paperwork and data entry, right?”

Grantaire nodded. “For the most part, yes, but I was hoping that today you would accompany me for lunch and for my two o'clock appointment. If you're interested, I can show you some new running routes around town on the drive home tonight that you might enjoy.”

Enjolras's face lit up. “That would be great, Mr. Partridge.”

“Enjolras, I've told you before, call me Grantaire. We are both adults here. Besides, you're my employee, Enjolras, not some kid.”

Enjolras flushed. “I know . . . ” His eyes wandered up and down Grantaire's body quickly before he looked away again, his cheeks growing redder.

Grantaire raised an eyebrow at him in confusion. Did Enjolras _really_ just check him out?

Maybe finding out if Enjolras liked men would be easier than he thought.

 

***

 

Several hours later, Enjolras and Grantaire were sitting next to a lake with their lunches. They had stopped by Grantaire's favorite wrap place, and had both ordered turkey wraps with a large lemonade. Grantaire felt silly admitting it to himself, but part of him felt giddy that they had ordered the same thing.

He looked out over the lake, watching the way that the blue and red butterflies flitted around the air. He hesitated before scooting over a few centimeters, his breath catching as his leg finally, _finally_ brushed against Enjolras’s. There wasn’t much contact, and he really was trying his hardest not to press their thighs together, or reach down and take his hand, but it was enough to get Grantaire’s heart rate elevated. He wasn’t sure if Enjolras noticed his newfound closeness or not, but he didn’t say anything, nor did he move away, so Grantaire figured that he was in the clear.

A few minutes later, Grantaire and Enjolras had both finished eating. Grantaire looked down at his watch to see that there was about a half hour before they needed to meet with Andrew and Rory, and it took twenty minutes to get to the house. “We should get going,” Grantaire said, allowing himself a few brief seconds of giving into temptation, and pressing up against Enjolras as he stood up.

This time, it was Enjolras’s breath who caught, and he looked up at Grantaire with wide, confused eyes and a dusty pink blush across his cheeks. When Grantaire didn’t say anything, and played it off like nothing was amiss, Enjolras muttered something under his breath and shook his head before standing. He shoved one of his hands into his pockets and picked up his lemonade, sipping on it as he followed Grantaire back to the car.

The drive to the estate was silent. Grantaire had no idea what Enjolras was thinking, but he, personally, was thinking about the different running paths he was going to show him that night. He used to get so much enjoyment from some of them, and he wanted Enjolras to get that same joy out of them as he had.  Maybe, if he could keep up, he would go with Enjolras on one of his runs sometime, and try to get back into it.

He was looking forward, too, about getting to show Enjolras the tricks of the trade, so to speak, of selling houses. He would show him how to find all the smallest problems in a seller’s home, and how to hide those problems from buyers. He’d show him how to argue prices, and how to keep both the buyers and sellers happy.

He had so much to teach him.

When they pulled up to the house, though, all thoughts of teaching left his head, as Enjolras shot forward in his chair with wide  eyes, his fingertips digging into the center console and the arm-rest on the door. “Hey, that’s my cousin’s car!” he exclaimed, looking through the window at the dark-blue Kia Sorrento that was parked in the driveway. He turned and looked at Grantaire. “Who are your clients? Rory and Andrew Ingalls-Cohan?”

The house that they were showing, Grantaire had almost declined putting on the market. It had been built back in the 1950s, and was rather small, other than the lush, expansive backyard. Now, though, with that gorgeous grin nearly splitting Enjolras’s cheeks, Grantaire could not have possibly have been happier with his decision. He tried not to show his elation, though, and simply raised an eyebrow.

Before Grantaire could get anything else out, though, Enjolras had unbuckled and shot out of the car, running up the driveway and banging on his cousin’s driver-side window. Grantaire watched as an attractive man with curly black hair stepped out and pulled Enjolras into a hug before an attractive, feminine looking man with shoulder-length wavy blond hair stepped out of the passenger side.

 _Holy fuck_. Grantaire’s eyes widened as he looked back and forth between his clients and his messenger bag, which held the book that he was in the process of reading. Unless Andrew Cohan and Victor Cohan were identical twins, his _favorite_ author was standing only a few feet away from his car.

Grantaire tried to shake the feeling of awe away, doing his best to pop his bulging eyeballs back into their sockets. He shut off the engine and got out, following Enjolras’s lead and going up the driveway. He walked to where the trio were chatting and laughing, and held his hand out to his clients. “Hello, I’m Grantaire Partridge. You already know Enjolras, I see.”

Enjolras’s cousin, the dark-haired one, took Grantaire’s hand first. “Hey, Grantaire. I’m Rory, and this,” he waved with his free hand in the direction of the blond, “is my husband, Andrew.”

Rory released Grantaire’s hand. Andrew took his turn. Grantaire’s mouth went dry, and he gave the man a tight grin before nodding. He tried to speak, to tell them that they could go ahead into the house, but he seemed to suddenly be without words.

Fortunately, Enjolras decided to take the tour into his own hands. “Come on, let’s go see the inside of the house.” He stepped over to Grantaire and reached into his pocket to take the keys. Grantaire let out a very unmanly squeak, and found himself frozen to the spot, both from being in Andrew’s presence, and from Enjolras being so close to his most sensitive spot.

Enjolras went up to the front door and let Andrew and Rory in before going back over to Grantaire, a concerned look on his face. “Hey, is everything okay?”

Grantaire unfroze, and he looked at Enjolras. “Your cousin is married to the author of _The Imaginable_?”

Enjolras chuckled and nodded. “Yeah, he is. He and Andy eloped last month.”

Grantaire shook his head, his eyes still wide. “Holy fuck.”

He coughed, trying to get back to being professional. He could fan boy out over Andrew as much as he wanted when Enjolras and he got home, but for now, he had a job to do, and that job was to sell this house.

 

***

 

Grantaire stayed frozen to the spot when Andrew stuck his head out the front door, and looked at the realtor and his friend. “So, are you guys coming in, or should Rory and I just wander around for a little bit to decide?”

Enjolras chuckled and shoved Grantaire playfully before grabbing his arm and dragging him towards the house. “Come on, lover boy, let's go sell this sucker.”

Grantaire nodded numbly and followed Enjolras into the house. _I guess this is my ballgame_ , Enjolras thought, leaving Grantaire in the foyer and going into the kitchen, where he could hear Rory mumbling to himself about the cabinetry and the appliances. When Enjolras came in, though, Rory made a face at him before gesturing around the kitchen. “So, since you're living here too, what do you think of this kitchen?”

“It's great.” Enjolras winked and pretended to slip into realtor mode. He tried to act like he was Grantaire, and that Rory and Andrew were just another set of clients he was trying to make a sale off of.

He walked over to the pantry, and folded back the panel doors. He studied it for a moment, trying to pick out the good and the bad for himself before trying to make the sale. “There's plenty of shelving for all of those boxes of cereal that your lovely husband and you insist on buying and, as you can see, the walls are lined with cedar wood to ensure that no bugs find their way into your snack foods. The lights are a little dim, but a quick swap with a higher-watt bulb will solve that problem.”

He stepped out and went to the window, running his hand along the pane. “These windows were created with the top-product in Plexiglas and clean up beautifully when attacked with Windex.”

He looked through the window into the backyard, his eyes growing wide. The grass was a rich green color, and there were shrubberies and flowers running alongside the fence. In the middle of the yard there was a slight dip which led to a large weeping willow, whose trunk curled around itself to form a makeshift seat.

Enjolras switched out of realtor mode and turned to his cousin. “In all seriousness, this yard is amazing.”

Rory and Andrew came over and looked out the window. They, too, agreed that the yard was beautiful.

Around the time that Enjolras finished his tour of the kitchen, Grantaire had snapped back to reality and came in, an embarrassed blush coloring his cheeks. “Sorry about that,” he murmured, reaching a hand up to scratch at the back of his neck. “Should I show you the rest of the house?”

“I don't know, Enjolras here was doing a pretty damn good job of showing us around,” Rory teased, bumping the younger man with his shoulder.

Enjolras rolled his eyes and looked pointedly at Grantaire. “Yes, finish showing off the house.”

Grantaire gave Enjolras a tight smile and nodded curtly, turning sharply on his heel and walking towards the stairs that went up to the second level.

Enjolras hung behind a bit before following, deeply enjoying the professional and mature persona that Grantaire took on as he got more and more comfortable with being around Andrew. Besides, Grantaire's pants were a size too small, and didn't leave _anything_ to the imagination. With how much Enjolras liked Grantaire, he couldn't help but stare.

Yes, Enjolras had tried _so hard_ not to fall for his gorgeous host, but the more that they talked to one another, and the more time that they spent together, it was impossible for him not too. He knew that it would end in heartbreak, but he just couldn't help himself, especially during those times where it seemed that Grantaire wanted him back just as badly.

Enjolras got so lost in his fantasizing of Grantaire's rear that he didn't notice that the tour was nearly over until Andrew pulled him aside and asked him what he thought of it.

“I think it's a great house,” Enjolras admitted truthfully, glancing into the spacious third bedroom. “What do you think of it?”

“I like it a lot. You obviously would get the second bedroom, but what do you think of this one? Think it'd make a good office-nursery combination?”

“Did you guys find a match already? I thought Rory said the social worker said it would take a year or two.”

Andrew smiled and shrugged. “I guess luck was on our side.”

Enjolras clapped Andrew on the shoulder. “Well good for you. I can't wait to see what you get.”

“Yeah, thanks.” Andrew looked over to Rory and Grantaire, who were deep in discussion over a chipped baseboard in the hall. “So, what's the deal with you and Mister Tall, Dark, and Handsome over there? He's been checking you out way too much for him to be your friend's straight, married dad.”

Enjolras blushed. “It's not like that. Sure, I think he's hot as fuck, but there's nothing there.”

“Uh-huh, sure there isn't.” Andrew waggled his eyebrows.

Enjolras ignored the suggestive motion, and decided a topic change was in order. “ _Anyway_ , Grantaire is a huge fan of yours, and I was hoping you'd sign his copy of his book after we get done here.”

“Yeah, absolutely. Anything for family.”

Andrew smiled at him, and for the next couple of minutes Enjolras and he made small talk while they waited for Grantaire and Rory to be done in the hall. Fortunately, they didn't have to wait very long before Grantaire and Rory were finished with their discussion, and they had appeared to come to a compromise on how to best deal with the baseboard. They walked over to Enjolras and Andrew, smiles on their faces.

Rory wrapped his arm around Andrew's waist and kissed him on the cheek. “So, do we want this house?” he asked, looking back and forth between Enjolras and Andrew.

Enjolras put his hands up. “Hey, that's between you and your man. I'm just a temporary guest until I get my own place.”

Rory rolled his eyes. “Yeah, whatever.” He looked back at Andrew. “What do you think of it?”

“I think it's great.” Andrew squeezed Rory's waist and turned to face Grantaire, smiling softly. “Could we come in sometime later this week and make a bid?”

“Of course. My secretary isn't going to be in today, but if you call up to the office tomorrow she will set up a time for you.” He turned his eyes to the ground shyly as Andrew's smile grew.

Enjolras's heart fluttered at how adorable and vulnerable Grantaire looked standing there, a blush covering his cheeks and a nervous grin across his face. He coughed, trying to force down the emotions and remain professional. “Uhm, Grantaire, Andrew said he'd sign your copy of _The Imaginable_ , if you want him to.”

Grantaire's eyes shot up and, sure enough, he ran out to his car to grab his copy while Andrew and Rory watched from the inside.

All Enjolras could think about while Andrew signed Grantaire's book was one thing, especially when Grantaire started to smile like a school girl.

_I am so crazy about this man._

 

***

 

Two hours later, Enjolras and Grantaire were back at the office, hard at work. Grantaire taught Enjolras how to enter the information into the system, but he mostly left him to his own devices to figure out how to organize some of Kathy’s notes into a new Excel spreadsheet.  Enjolras couldn’t say that it was the most interesting of jobs, but at least he knew how to do it. He ended up getting hungry and ate one of the other secretaries meal bars (one that did _not_ taste all that great, in Enjolras’s opinion), but by the time that Grantaire had wandered back into the front office to ask if Enjolras was ready to go check out some running routes, his hunger was back full force.

In addition to hungry, though, Enjolras was starting to feel mighty strange. His throat felt like there was ants crawling up and down the tissues, and his tongue felt like it had more than doubled in size in the last couple of minutes.

Enjolras knew exactly what was happening, but he knew that there was nothing that he could do to stop it. . He patted his pockets where he normally kept his Epi-pen and his Benadryl, even though he remembered only a few seconds later that he had left both in his running shorts the night before. He began to panic.  

Grantaire gave him a look of concern. “Everything okay?” he asked, walking towards Enjolras cautiously.

Enjolras’s eyes widened, and he shook his head wildly, awkwardly shifting in his seat and running a hand through his hair as his throat started to officially close. “Uhm, yeah, everything’s fine.” He stood up in a rush, accidently knocking his water bottle over in the process. He scrambled to pick it back up, and ended up knocking the paper shredder over. He let out a choked noise and straightened that out, as well, panic rushing through his entire being. He needed to think of something to do to stop the allergy attack, and fast.

Grantaire squatted down next to him. “Whoa, Enjolras, slow down. You’re fine.”

Enjolras ignored him, and gathered up all the scraps of paper, determined to have at least one thing in order, just in case . . . no. He couldn’t think like that. He was going to be fine.

He put the papers from the shredder in a pile before picking the pile up and dropping it back into the container. He got about half of them in, but he let out a groan when all of his efforts just led to him knocking it over again, his muscles beginning to hurt as his body tried to attack whatever allergen had been in that meal bar.

Grantaire put a hand on Enjolras’s shoulder, and tried to move him away from the mess so that he could try and help. Enjolras, however, was startled by the movement, and he lurched away before giving Grantaire a look of terror. Grantaire’s brows narrowed, and he reached out for Enjolras again, although this time, he was much slower. “Enjolras, it’s me. Grantaire. Calm down, you’re okay.”

Enjolras shook his head, and fell from his heels back onto his rear, his pupils blown wide and his nostrils flaring. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, picking up the fallen water bottle and drinking. Once the water was about halfway gone, he stopped, and closed his eyes. He tried to control his breathing, and he mouthed the numbers between zero and ten as he tried to calm himself down. Nothing seemed to be working, however, and the harder that he tried to breath in and out evenly, the harder it was to do.

Before he knew it, things began to go dark.

 

***

 

Grantaire was extremely confused. Enjolras had seemed totally fine not even a minute ago. Did Grantaire do something wrong somehow? Was there something wrong with Enjolras? He couldn’t tell. All he knew was the Enjolras’s face was quickly becoming more and more flushed, and his blown pupils were continuing to creep towards the edges of his irises. The flesh above his cheekbones was beginning to swell, and his lips had turned a sickly shade of purple.

Before Grantaire had a chance to try and figure out what was wrong, Enjolras’s eyes fluttered shut and he fell over in a heap.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

13

 

“Oh, fuck,” Grantaire muttered, staring at Enjolras in shock and confusion before shooting up and running back into his office to grab his cell phone. He dialed 911, his heart racing and his eyes wide in fear.

 The phone rang three times before a female voice picked up. “Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”

“My employee just passed out, he got really pale and looks weird and he couldn’t stop knocking things over before he stopped moving and―” Grantaire cut out, beginning to hyperventilate as he ran back out to the lobby and pressed himself against the wall, sliding down and letting his free hand dangle in between his legs as his mind raced through scenario after scenario of things that could be making Enjolras ill, or possibly even killing him. After a moment, he lifted his hand and pressed it against his eyes, trying to calm down his racing heart and his staggered breathing. “I don’t know what’s wrong with him.”

“I am sending an ambulance to you right now. I need you to stay on the line with me until they get there, all right? Can you do that?”

“Yes.”

“Great. Can you safely check to see if he’s breathing?”

Grantaire’s eyes went wide. Fuck. He didn’t even think about that. What if Enjolras was dead, and he was just sitting across the room freaking out? What help was he if something was seriously wrong? Grantaire was just a lowly realtor; he didn’t know the first thing about medicine! Cuts and bruises, yes, small sprains, maybe, but someone passing out and swelling up? He didn’t have the slightest clue where to begin.

Grantaire pulled his phone away from his ear and crawled over, his own breathing coming out shallowly as he tried to figure out the easiest way to feel Enjolras’s breath. After several unsuccessful attempts, though, he knew that he was out of his league. He put the phone back up and whispered, “How . . . how do I check?”

“Put the side of your hand below his nose, sir, and tell me if you feel anything. If not, I will need you to cheek his pulse.”

“Okay.” Grantaire pulled his phone away again and scooted closer to Enjolras, who was already looking so much worse. The swelling around his cheekbones had expanded so that it went all the way down to the corners of his mouth, and his skin had started to look almost scaly. Grantaire leaned down and kissed his cheek, instantly aware of just how burning hot the skin felt.

Grantaire lifted his head up and did as the woman on the phone asked, and slid his hand next to Enjolras’s nostrils. He was able to feel the breath on his fingers. He let out a sigh, relief washing over him. He let out a happy laugh and leaned down, pressing a quick kiss to Enjolras’s lips.

He ignored the feelings of guilt that came from Enjolras’s lack of consent for the kiss and raised the phone back up to his ear. “He’s breathing.”

“All right . . . you said he looks strange. Can you describe his appearance to me?”

“His face is really swollen, and his lips are purpling. His pupils got really wide, too, before he passed out.”

“Has he eaten anything in the last forty-five minutes?”

“No, last time he ate was a couple of hours ago.” He moved his legs so that they were under him, then rolled up onto his knees. He glanced up at the desk and saw a crumpled wrapper of some sort sitting on the corner. He stood up and picked it up, flattening it out and looking at it. It was one of Kathy’s meal-replacement bars. “Actually, he ate a granola bar that had peanut butter and chocolate in it. I just found the wrapper.”

“Do you know if he has any food allergies?”

“I don’t know. I’ve only known him for a few weeks.”

“All right, sir. The ambulance should be nearly there, all right? Just a few more minutes.”

Grantaire didn’t say anything else. He sat back on his heels, and moved a hand to Enjolras’s head. He ran his fingers through Enjolras’s hair, gently massaging his scalp. He leaned down and kissed his forehead, his fingers still slowly running through the strands.

Five minutes later, the ambulance had come and taken Enjolras. Grantaire was following directly behind in his car, panic still running through his veins and his mind still racing. He pulled his phone out and unlocked the screen, going to his contacts and pulling up Eponine’s number. He clicked the “call” button and put it on speaker, dropping it down onto his lap so that he had better control of the car.

Eponine must have had her phone in her hand, as she answered after only the first ring. “Hey R, what’s up?”

“I’m on my way to the hospital. Something happened to Enjolras, and he won’t wake up. The ambulance is taking him to St. Luke’s now.”

Grantaire could hear Eponine stand up and get her things together. “I’m going to stop by Michaels and grab Molly from work. We’ll be right there.”

Eponine hung up, and Grantaire tossed his phone onto the passenger seat. He was feeling slightly calmer now that he knew that Enjolras was in the hands of skilled medics, but his heart was still racing, and his mouth was dry. God, he should have found out the first time that he discussed Enjolras filling in for Kathy any medical problems Enjolras had. If he had, he would have known how to deal with it, _especially_ if this, whatever it was, was caused by a food allergy of some sort. Enjolras probably had an Epi-pen, or Benadryl, or _something_ that he used to help in situations like this.

Grantaire sighed, pressing a hand over his eyes as the stoplight changed to red. He was suddenly so, so tired, and getting home after all of this couldn’t come fast enough.

After what felt like hours, Grantaire finally pulled into the parking lot of the emergency room. He killed the engine and stuffed the keys in his pocket, quickly getting out of the car and rushing into the lobby.

He went to the front desk, his eyes wide. “Hi, uhm, I’m Grantaire Partridge, and my . . . my friend was just brought in, and I was told to follow? Enjolras Cauthers?”

The front desk worker looked at the documents on her computer, and nodded. She gestured with her hand out towards the orange plastic chairs lining the waiting room. “Take a seat, sir, and I’ll let you know when you can go in and see Mr. Cauthers. It shouldn’t be too much longer, now.”

Grantaire nodded. “All right.” He walked over and sat down in one of the chairs. He put his head in his hands and sighed, closing his eyes tightly. He hated hospitals. Ever since Danny had been announced dead in this very building, it took all he had not to panic just driving past this stupid place. Eponine and he had been back once, when Kieran had slipped over a soccer ball and broken her arm, and they spent the entire visit alternating who would stay inside with Kieran, and who got to leave for a little bit.

Grantaire didn’t know how long he sat there with his head in his hands, but the next thing he knew, he was being pulled into a hug by a thin pair of feminine arms and a large pregnant belly. He hugged Molly back while she tried to stifle a sob, burying her face in Grantaire’s shoulder. “Oh, God, what happened?” she moaned, tightening her arms around her father’s waist.

Grantaire kissed her on the head. He looked over her shoulder at Eponine, giving her a tight smile before turning back to his daughter. “I don’t know, honey. His face swelled up, and he passed out. I think it was something food-related.”

Molly stiffened. “Didn’t he have his Epi-pen with him? He carries it everywhere. I mean, he even has it when he goes for runs.”

Grantaire shook his head. “I don’t know. He didn’t seem to realize he was having an allergy attack, if that’s what it was. He was acting strange, and knocking things over, but I figured that he was just clumsy, or overwhelmed from his first day on the job.”

He kissed her hair and held her tighter with one arm, his other reaching out to pull Eponine against his side. He knew that she had to be struggling with being back in this place just as much as he was, if not more. Somehow, though, she seemed to be staying strong, without even a trace of tears in her eyes or a tremble to her long limbs. She was the picture of calm, while Grantaire knew that any stranger in this room sparing him a passing glance would be able to tell how much he was freaking out.

For a solid ten to fifteen minutes, Grantaire, Molly, and Eponine just stood there, their arms wrapped around each other while they considered what had happened. Grantaire, especially, felt that he had a lot to reflect on, _especially_ since he should have been the one keeping watch and making sure that Enjolras was all right at all times. He may have developed strong feelings for the man, but when it came to the office, Enjolras was Grantaire’s employee first, and anything else second.

Eventually, the woman at the front desk stopped clicking away at her keyboard, and looked across the room towards Grantaire. She made eye contact with him before holding her hand up and moving it in a “come here” motion.

 Grantaire nodded at the woman before releasing his family, his nerves intensifying as he pondered whether the woman was summoning him for something good, or whether something more serious was going on with Enjolras. He kissed Molly’s temple and took shaky steps towards the counter, his mouth drying out as he struggled to ask, “Can we see Enjolras now?”

The woman shook her head, her long, dark braids swinging around her face as she looked back and forth between Grantaire and her computer screen. “You will be able to in a few minutes, but I just had a quick question about Mr. Cauthers’ care. Is there a number that I can put down as an emergency contact? I see that he has an out-of-state driver’s license, so if there isn’t any local next of kin, your number will do just fine.”

Grantaire thought about it for a moment before giving the woman Molly’s number, as well as his own. She tapped them into her computer, the sound of her shaped acrylic nails bouncing off the keys echoing around the room.   She nodded as the information was saved into the system. “Thank you. Provided that Mr. Cauthers’ chart has been updated recently, it looks like a nurse will be out soon to discuss the reason for his visit here today. “

“Okay, thank you.” Grantaire forced out a smile in her direction before going back over to Eponine and Molly. “A nurse is going to be out soon to tell us what happened, and to take us to him.” He wrapped an arm around Molly’s shoulders and patted her stomach where he assumed his grandchild’s rump was resting, once again trying to distract himself from the panic running through his mind. It proved to be a necessary distraction, too, as Molly still seemed out of sorts about the whole thing.  She still had tears rolling down her cheeks, and she had her arms wrapped as tightly around her abdomen as she could go. Grantaire reached up and ran his fingers through her hair, praying that they would be able to go and see Enjolras soon.

Fortunately, it didn’t take more than three or four more minutes before a young nurse walked out in pair of mulberry scrubs, her light-brown hair piled on the top of her head in a messy bun. She looked down at her clipboard before looking around the waiting room, her eyes narrowing and her lips scrunching up to one side as she searched around for her patient’s loved ones “Grantaire Partridge?”

Grantaire lifted his hand in a wave, and led his ex-wife and daughter over to the woman. She smiled encouragingly at the family and looked at her clipboard again before holding her hand out to Grantaire. He shook it while she began to speak. “Hi. My name is Ronnie Winters, and I’m the nurse who had been assigned to keep a watch over Enjolras tonight.”

Grantaire let go of Ronnie’s hand, and his heart dropped. Oh God, he figured with that soft smile and quick turnaround time that Enjolras was going to be fine and would be out of there within a few hours, but if he had to stay the night . . . how bad was it? He looked at Eponine’s calm façade and Molly’s panic-stricken face before asking, “W-what happened?”

Ronnie tucked her clipboard under her armpit before typing in a code next to the doors and leading the trio down the hallway of private patient rooms. “He had an allergic reaction to the carrot juice that was in the meal bar that he ate. We gave him a double shot of epinephrine to get his heart rate and breathing back to normal, as well as to make the swelling in his mouth and cheeks to go away.”

Ronnie glanced over her shoulder at them. “He’s fine, now, but he really needs to be carrying his Epi-pen with him at all times so that situations like this can be avoided. Allergy attacks can be fatal if they aren’t treated in the proper amount of time.”

She stopped in front of a door and slid her clipboard into a cubby on the wall. “Here’s his room. I’m just warning you, he may be a little bit out of it for a couple of minutes. He’s awake, but his speech was still a bit slurred from the epinephrine when I left him.”

Grantaire nodded and glanced at the doorframe before looking back at her, “Thank you.”

He watched her walk away before pulling the door open and holding it for Molly and Eponine. The women quickly walked in and went straight towards the bed, while Grantaire went in at a much slower pace, his stomach tying itself in knots and his mouth once again going dry. He knew that Ronnie had said that Enjolras was all right, but there was still that nagging feeling in his stomach that wouldn’t stop telling him that she was wrong, and that he wasn’t going to make it. He was terrified that he was going to lose his chance to tell the man how he felt about him, and that he wouldn’t be able to _finally_ explore his sexuality with a man who actually meant something to him. He knew that was selfish, especially with the situation that Enjolras was in now, but he just couldn’t help it. He wanted Enjolras, and he wanted him bad.

He had to look at Enjolras, though, when Enjolras spoke his name softly. “Hey, Grantaire? Thanks for, you know, getting me here and all,” he said, sitting up and leaning out of the bed to pull Grantaire over.

Grantaire flushed. “I didn’t do anything. All I did was call nine-one-one.”

Enjolras shrugged. “Yeah, well, you calling nine-one-one is the thing that probably saved my life, since I left my Epi-pen in my running shorts from last ni―ow! What was that for?” He turned to glare at Molly, who had punched him as hard as she could in the arm.

Molly’s gaze darkened. “You need to always keep it with you, idiot. We’ve talked about this before. Remember the coffee incident?”

Enjolras rolled his eyes. “It was one time, Mols, and it got class canceled, didn’t it?”

“That’s not the point! Yes, class was canceled, but I had to rush you to the emergency room, so it wasn’t like I got to enjoy it!”

“Whatever.” He turned back to Grantaire. “Regardless, I just wanted to say thank you. You don’t know how much I appreciate it.” He reached out and squeezed Grantaire’s hand, lacing their fingers for a brief second before pulling away and leaning against Molly.

Grantaire felt like a schoolboy, his cheeks turning a dark red from the brief contact and his stomach filling with butterflies as he realized exactly what emotion was coloring all of his thoughts and his worries about Enjolras. He was falling in love, and boy was he falling fast.

Molly was going to kill him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

14

 

When Grantaire, Eponine, and Molly walked into Enjolras's hospital room, the words to describe Enjolras's relief would not come. His desire for them to leave, though, after an hour or so of them being there, _that_ he could put into words.

Enjolras opened his mouth widely and faked a yawn, fluttering his eyes so that they were halfway closed. Grantaire didn't say anything (nor had he, for at least twenty minutes), but Eponine reached a hand out and put it on Enjolras's forearm gingerly, a soft smile on her face. “We should get going. You get some rest, sweetie, and we'll see you tomorrow.” She turned her head towards Molly. “Are you going home now, too, or should I leave you my car?”

Molly looked at Enjolras for an answer. He shook his head, not quite ready to be totally alone in the hospital quite yet. Ready to be away from Grantaire and the attraction that was overwhelming him, yes, but only having the doctors and nurses as company was more than he could stand.

Grantaire was still staring blankly at Enjolras when Eponine started to walk out of the room, but a quick tap to his shoulder brought him back to Earth. He barely looked at Enjolras before turning on his heel and left the room, this time leaving Eponine behind.

Molly watched her parents leave before pushing at Enjolras's leg so that she could sit down on the bed, too. As she climbed up, she narrowed her eyes at Enjolras again, the obvious annoyance she felt when she first got to the hospital coming back with a vengeance. “You really are an idiot, you know that, right? If you don't know how a food will affect you, you're supposed to be reading the labels.”

“I know.”

“And if you aren't going to keep your Epipen with you, you should at least take your Benadryl so you don't die.”

“I know, Mols.”

“You really should have let my dad know what medical concerns hiring you would bring about. That was really irrespon—”

“Dammit, Molly, I _know_ all that. I fucked up. I get it.”

Molly flinched as though she had been hit, and immediately Enjolras felt guilty. She didn't deserve his irritation, especially when all she was doing was showing that she cared about him and worried for his safety. She hadn't done anything wrong.

Enjolras sighed, turning his eyes down to the mattress. “I'm sorry, Molly. The epinephrine they gave me is just making me irritable.”

Molly nodded, but she got off the bed regardless, her hand cradling the bottom of her belly and her cheeks colored with annoyance. “Well, that nurse said that the meds would make you tired, so I'll just let you sleep and go get some food or something.” She grabbed her purse from the table next to the bed and pulled the strap over her shoulder.

“Molly, wait—”

“I'll see you tomorrow, Enjolras.” She turned on her heel and stormed out of the room, the door slamming shut behind her.

Enjolras watched the dust settle before lying back on the pillows, groaning loudly as he pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. He kept them there for a second before throwing his head back and staring up at the ceiling.

Enjolras sat like that for a good twenty to twenty-five minutes until he felt his phone vibrate next to his right thigh. He moved his hand down and grasped around blindly until his fingers wrapped around the hard plastic. He pulled it out from under the covers and clicked it on, his brows furrowing as he struggled to read the message scrolling across his screen.

_Thanks for showing us the house today. You did good, kid. -Rory_

And then a second message a few seconds later.

_Andrew and I agree that realtor-man totally has the hots for you._

Enjolras rolled his eyes and clicked “ignore” on the second message. The first, though, he had no trouble answering. _Yeah it was fun. Hey, so I'm on lockdown at the ER for eating carrots, but do you wanna get lunch or something tomorrow?_

He sent the message and leaned his head back again, closing his eyes while he waited for a response.

Rory took so long to respond that by the time Enjolras's phone buzzed again, he was fast asleep.  


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

15

 

Once it had been decided that Molly was going to stay with Enjolras, Eponine and Grantaire made their way home. Grantaire didn't want to leave, but he knew that it was for the best, especially with how frequently he was having to stop himself from walking over to Enjolras and kissing him senseless for scaring him like that.

Grantaire knew he was being _way_ too obvious with his feelings, but he couldn't figure out for the life of him how to tone everything down. He had never felt like this before, about anyone, and while it scared him, he also loved the feeling. He loved how his heart sped up when Enjolras entered the room, he loved how he wanted to know anything and everything about Enjolras, and he loved that every time he looked at him, he found a new physical trait that he found attractive, from Enjolras's eyes, to the moon-shaped scar on his right calf.

He had been so obvious, in fact, that even Eponine had picked up on it. He didn't care that she knew, but her timing on talking about it could have been better.

She brought it up on the car ride home, when Grantaire was too focused on avoiding the other idiots on the road to realize that Eponine had stopped talking about a new client of hers.

“So, when were you planning on telling me you are interested in Enjolras?” she asked, leaning over the center console and taking a sip of the Diet Coke he got at the McDonalds down the street from the hospital.

Grantaire jerked his head in her direction, his eyes widening. “What are you talking about?” He looked back at the road, his heart racing, before he glanced back at her.

Eponine rolled her eyes. “Don’t bullshit me, R. We were married for twenty-seven years, I can tell when you want something.”

“I don’t want anything.”

“Right, and that’s why you spent the whole time we were at the hospital staring at Enjolras like he made the world go ’round.” Grantaire, somehow, turned even redder. Eponine giggled and reached over to squeeze his forearm. “You’re adorable, R.”

Grantaire shook his head, and tried to keep his focus on the road. “Shut up.” He knew that there was no point in denying it, though. Eponine was right; twenty-seven years of marriage had _definitely_ made any possibility of hiding what he felt was a pointless journey to even considered making. Eponine always knew everything, and one moment of Grantaire faking his feelings would immediately let her know that she had been right. He hesitated for a moment before whispering, “Molly is going to kill me when she finds out.”

Eponine looked at Grantaire in confusion. “Why would she kill you? It’s not like she’s dating Enjolras, or anything. They’re just friends. It’s not like she knows that you’re―oh, I see your point now.” She pursed her lips and turned to stare back out the front window, her nose twitching like it did when she was deep in thought.

Grantaire glanced over at her, his mind whirling as he wondered what she was thinking. Unlike her, he hadn’t quite picked up on the ability to read minds. Her emotions, yes, and her moods, also yes, but her mind was a complex labyrinth that he doubted _she_ even knew how to climb through.

Eventually, though, she must have figured out what she wanted to say, because she turned back to Grantaire. “I know I’m the one who suggested waiting to tell the girls about our divorce until after Enjolras left, but maybe we should just go ahead and tell them. Then you could try and see if Enjolras likes you back or not, and if he doesn’t, at the least the girls will know that you’re gay, so you could find another guy to move on with without having to hide it from them.”

Grantaire didn’t even have to consider his response before it was out of his mouth. “No way in hell.”

“Well, why not?”

Grantaire chose not to respond. He didn’t say anything, in fact, until they had gotten back to their house, parked the car, gone inside, and gone up to their bedroom so that they could talk in private, since Kieran was still home. Eponine laid back first, her back pressed against a wall of pillows while Grantaire decided to sprawl out, his head cushioned on the soft flesh of her thighs. He thought about directly answering her question from the car, but he decided against it, figuring that she would figure out another question for him before he had finished answering, anyway.

Sure enough, Eponine ran her fingers through his hair, staring down at him over the top of her nose before asking, “So, why won't you try to see if something happens with Enjolras? You’re a grown man, you know, not an adolescent boy. There’s no harm in telling him your feelings, he isn’t going to tease you on the playground.”

Grantaire sighed and resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He turned over onto his side, his eyes beginning to blur as he stared at a discoloration in the white paint of their bedroom walls.

He thought carefully about what he wanted to say before he answered, “I like him a lot, Meri,” he admitted, hiding his eyes against the hem of her shorts. “It's stupid, but I feel like a kid with my first crush whenever I'm around him. Besides, like I said earlier, Molly would be so furious with me. I mean, she _did_ bring Enjolras home with her. I know they aren't together, but maybe they want to be. Maybe _that’s_ why Molly brought him home, to try and seduce him.”

Eponine snorted the thought of Molly trying to seduce anyone before her tone turned serious again. “I'm not going to push you into doing anything you don't want to do. Just remember that I'll support your decision and go along with whatever you decide, okay?”

Grantaire reached up and put his hand on the back of Eponine's neck. He pulled her down into a sweet kiss before adjusting their position so that they were cuddled up to one another.

For several minutes, they lied there in silence. Eventually, it was Eponine who spoke. “I'm going down to the lake to visit Brent's sister this weekend, and Molly and Kieran are driving up to Chicago, so it'll be just you two here . . . by yourselves . . . all weekend.”

Grantaire groaned. “Do you have to go?”

“Honey, this is Brent's first niece. He wants to meet her while she's small, before she is influenced by her big brothers.”

“I get that, but why do _you_ have to go?” Eponine gave him a stern look. Grantaire deflated and groaned again. “Fine. Leave me here to die.”

Eponine rolled her eyes. “Okay, R. Are you sure that you're forty-seven or should I be worried that my ex-husband is a thirteen-year-old girl?”

“Shut up.”

Eponine laughed and ruffled Grantaire's hair. She stared at him in contemplation before asking, “So, you feel like it's your first crush, huh? What does that mean? Like, racing heart, palms sweating, getting hard as soon as he looks at you?” She winked at the last part.

When Grantaire blushed even darker, Eponine laughed so hard that it shook the bed. “Oh, my God, you do!”

Grantaire hid his face in embarrassment, his mind automatically jumping to a few days earlier, when he accidentally walked in on Enjolras drying off after a shower. He tried to hide it, or at least get his mind somewhere else so that his suddenly much taller friend would stop making itself known. When that didn’t work, he grabbed one of the pillows and threw his leg over it, hoping that that would make his arousal less apparent.

Eponine's tears of laughter were all he needed to know that the pillow had failed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

16

 

_Enjolras came in from his run, his tight gray shirt drenched from the rain and straining across his chilled, erect nipples. His running shorts were plastered to his strong thighs, and when he saw Grantaire, he had eyes only for him._

_Grantaire was at Enjolras and his new kitchen table, a newspaper spread in front of him and a pair of wire reading glasses resting low on his nose. He was wearing a pair of jeans and an oatmeal corded sweater. He looked up when Enjolras walked his way, a soft smile spreading across his face._

_Enjolras sauntered over, swaying his hips and letting his eyes hood over seductively. “Hey, baby,” he said, his baritone voice dropping down an octave with lust. “I love that sweater on you.”_

_He reached over and ran his hand down the length of Grantaire's arm before leaning over, kissing the back of Grantaire's neck gently and wrapping his arms around his waist, resting his face against the top of Grantaire’s head._

_Grantaire made a soft noise in the back of his throat at the feeling of his lover’s breath. He reached his hand up to grab Enjolras's arm, pulling him down towards Grantaire’s lap so that their heads were directly next to one another. He nuzzled their faces together gently, forgoing the potential for a lust-filled act in favor of a loving one._

_Enjolras smiled and kissed his partner, his free hand moving to cup the back of Grantaire's neck. He followed Grantaire’s lead, keeping the kiss soft and sweet. After a few minutes, though, it wasn’t enough, and Enjolras’s dominant side took over. He pressed his lips harder against Grantaire’s before he darted his tongue out, licking at the seam of Grantaire's lips. Grantaire immediately gave in, and turned in his chair before wrapping his arms around Enjolras's waist and yanking him onto his lap. Enjolras let his cover down for a moment, letting out a squeak before coming back into himself and pressing fully against Grantaire._

_Grantaire could feel himself growing hard beneath Enjolras's muscular quadriceps, and when Enjolras noticed, he, too, began to thicken. He let out a groan before moving his mouth to Grantaire’s neck, kissing along his veins and biting gently before sucking hard enough to leave a mark._

_Grantaire dropped his hand onto his lover's lap and let it drift up towards his crotch, his fingers stealthily undoing Enjolras's zipper and sliding beneath the thick fabric to_ _―_

Grantaire jolted awake, his heart racing and his cock swollen. He glanced over to see if Eponine was asleep before closing his eyes and easing his hand into his pajama pants. He gave the head of his cock a few quick squeezes before dipping his hand down lower and teasing his balls with the tips of his fingers. He tried to keep the low, guttural moan that escaped his lips silent, but that was more easily said than done.

Grantaire opened his eyes and looked over at Eponine again, to see if the sound woke her up. It hadn't, and she was still fast asleep.

Grantaire let out a quiet sigh and turned his head back up, moving his fingers from his balls back up the tip of his cock. He closed his eyes again and pretended that it was Enjolras's hand, and that the sparks of pleasure rushing through his veins was from the beautiful runner.

He was really starting to get into it when he felt a hand on his forearm. He jumped and quickly turned his head to the side to see Eponine smirking at him, a knowing look in her eyes and the bottle of lotion that sat on the bedside table in her hand.

Grantaire blushed and took the lotion, although he yanked his hand out of his pants uncomfortably. “Uhm, thanks.”

“Try to keep the loud moans to a minimum, all right? I can sleep through it, but Kieran _is_ just down the hall, dear. Remember, I’ve heard you over the years, and you are so _not_ quiet.” She winked and pinched Grantaire's arm before rolling back over, letting out a few chuckles before her breathing started to even back out.

Grantaire stared at her for a moment before looking back at the lotion. He contemplated starting again for a moment before sighing and putting the bottle on his own nightstand.

Ex-wives really knew how to kill the mood.

 

***

 

“All right, Mr. Cauthers, it looks like your breathing and heart rate is back to normal, so I think it's safe to say that you go home now.”

The nurse patted Enjolras on the hand. She made sure that his IV was removed from his arm properly before pushing the stand away and leaving the room. She returned back a few minutes Enjolras’s with his clothes from the previous day, his wallet, and a release form for him to sign. She handed Enjolras the form and a pen first, trading his clothes and wallet for the form once he was done.

Enjolras went into the bathroom and got dressed. Once he was done, he went back to the bed and grabbed his phone, unlocking the screen and finding Molly's number as he walked out into the hall and out towards the front of the hospital.

Molly answered on the second ring. “What's wrong?”

Enjolras snorted. He should have known Molly's maternal-nervousness would start to kick in around him at some point. “Nothing's wrong, Mols. I need you to come pick me up; they already released me so I'm waiting outside for you.”

“Okay. Do you need me to bring you a change of clothes or anything?”

“Yeah, that would be great. Just sweats and a tee-shirt, please.”

“Will do. I'll see you in twenty minutes.”

“Okay. Bye.”

“Bye.”

Enjolras hung up his phone and sat down on one of the benches right outside the hospital door, taking advantage of the free Wi-Fi and pulling up a movie on Netflix. Twenty minutes passed by quickly, and he was sucked deeply into the film by the time that Molly pulled up.

“Hey, you,” she said, tapping Enjolras on the forehead to pull his attention away from his phone. Once he looked up, she handed him a Wal-Mart bag full of clothes. “I'll wait out here for you if you want to go and get changed.”

“Okay.” Enjolras took the bag and went back inside, going across the first waiting room towards the bathroom. He emerged five minutes later, feeling much more comfortable than he had in either the papery hospital gown or his confining professional attire. He went over to Molly's car and climbed in to the passenger seat, his limbs heavy and his eyes burning as though someone had rubbed sand into them.

The drive home was quiet, and went by before Enjolras had even realized that they had left the parking lot. He figured that he must have fallen asleep, as sudden exhaustion common side effect of his allergic reactions that always seemed to last for days after the fact.

When they got inside, Molly went upstairs to finish getting things ready for her weekend trip and for her doctor's appointment while Enjolras stopped into the kitchen, going to the pantry and getting out the cereal. He got the milk from the fridge and a bowl and set off to work.

Once his meal was ready, he put the cereal and milk away before sitting down at the table, eating slowly as he listened to the sounds going on in the house around him. He could hear Eponine on the phone in the living room, Molly dropping things as she tried to yank clothes from her closet, and Grantaire walking down the stairs towards the kitchen.

“Hey, you,” Grantaire said as he walked in, fixing himself a bowl of cereal before pulling out the chair next to Enjolras and taking a seat. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine. Tired.”

“I bet. You should spend the day sleeping, or watching movies or something else relaxing.”

Enjolras shrugged. He thought about the night before, when Rory and he had been texting back and forth about going out for lunch that day. He had been indecisive before, but now it sounded like fun, _especially_ since the house was going to be empty all day. He thought about it a little longer before he went ahead and pulled out his phone, sending Rory a text saying that they should meet up in the early afternoon, so that Enjolras could sleep off the Epinephrine for a little bit longer. He also set an alarm on his phone, so he wouldn't sleep too horribly long. “Actually, I think me and Rory are going to go do something.”

“Well, have fun then.” Grantaire smiled at him before turning his focus back onto his breakfast. He took a bite of his cereal, letting out an unmanly squeak when some of the milk dribbled down the corner of his mouth. It coated his lips and left a few damp spots on his chin, but Grantaire darted his tongue out to get all the milk.

Enjolras swallowed hard, trying to ignore the thoughts that the white liquid brought to mind, _especially_ with Grantaire’s tongue like that. He was barely keeping his cool around Grantaire without fantasizing about him, and he _really_ didn't need to get hard around his host . . . and if he kept staring at Grantaire’s lips, that was exactly what was going to happen.

He finished his cereal and drank the milk before taking the bowl to the sink. He filled it up with water and put it in the dishwasher before turning back to Grantaire. “I think I’m going to go ahead and try and sleep a little.” Grantaire nodded, and Enjolras began to walk out of the kitchen. Before he could make it out of the doorway, however, Grantaire called out his name. Enjolras turned around to look at him.

Grantaire looked as though he hadn’t meant to call Enjolras aloud, and he began to blush as soon as Enjolras and he locked eyes. “I just wanted to tell you that I'm really glad you're okay,” Grantaire admitted, swirling his spoon around the milk and keeping his eyes averted.

Enjolras gave Grantaire a tight smile, but he didn't say anything back. He was glad that he was okay, too, but saying that would just make the conversation awkward. He forced himself to leave the kitchen and get away from Grantaire.

While Enjolras was walking up the stairs, he didn’t feel all that tired, but the moment he crossed the threshold into the bedroom, that immediately changed. He yawned, and his eyes started to flicker shut of their own accord.

He kicked his Nikes off and crawled into the bed, falling asleep in less than a minute.

. . . and, of course, he ended up dreaming about Grantaire.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

17

 

Unsurprisingly, Grantaire was ready to go to the ultrasound before his daughter or his ex-wife were. He stalled for a good fifteen minutes, wandering around the kitchen and the living room, before he decided that he needed to do _something_ , or he was going to lose his mind.

He decided to get Molly's keys from her purse in the hall, and to go fill up her car with gas. He drove through McDonalds and picked up a few double cheeseburgers and medium fries, as well. The same attractive black man that was there a few weeks ago was there, and he, once again, donated some of his own money to Grantaire’s meal before giving him his number again, “just in case the other one got thrown out or something.”

By the time that Grantaire got back to the house, the women were ready, but he wasn’t so sure anymore that he was. Seeing that baby move on the screen . . . it would make the whole situation real. He knew, of course, that the baby in Molly’s uterus was a real, living thing, but during Molly’s stay at home, her impending motherhood seemed abstract to him, and almost like something that wasn’t really happening. This, though . . . this would make it all real.

Grantaire had barely made it into the house when Molly took the keys and one of the containers of fries out of Grantaire's hands before she leaned up to give him a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks for the fries, Daddy.”

“You're welcome, sweetheart. Your tank is full, now, so you won't have to get gas after the ultrasound. You're going to go pick up Kieran from the Barr's house, right?”

Molly nodded. Grantaire gave her a smile, and reached a hand down to pat at his own keys that were resting safely in his pocket. “All right then. Mom and I will meet you at Dr. Wagner's office, then.”

“Okay.” She ate one of her fries and walked down the driveway to her car, her keys flipping back and forth in her hand. She climbed in and drove away, the music of a top-twenty radio station blaring as she took off down the street.

Eponine came downstairs right as Molly turned onto the main road, her purse thrown over her shoulder and her damp hair leaving wet spots on her shoulders. Grantaire opened the front door for her before nodding towards his car, which was sitting in the street next to the mailbox, while Eponine’s was in the driveway. “I was thinking that we could just take mine, and I'll just drop you off at Brent's when we are done with Molly.”

Eponine shrugged. One of the straps of her purse fell off her shoulder, and she quickly readjusted before setting off in the direction of the Sedan. “Yeah, that’s fine, I told Molly that I was going on a work trip this weekend, and that she'd have to pick me up on her way back because I ‘don't want to take my car’s.” She winked, which immediately reminded Grantaire of the fact that Enjolras and he would be alone together all weekend.

Grantaire chuckled, and followed her to the car. “Ah, so you were planning on that all along.”

“That's right, stud. That way I can give you fair warning on when to expect all three of us . . . you know, just in case you need a warning to keep track of time.” She winked again.

Grantaire rolled his eyes. He didn't say anything for several minutes as he tried to remember the way to the OB/GYN that Eponine had gone to for so many years. Molly didn't have a doctor in St. Louis that she felt safe delivering with, if the baby came a few weeks early, so Eponine had called up her doctor, and he offered to take Molly on.

Grantaire, personally, couldn't have cared less what his daughter decided. She wasn't due until September, and this _was_ her first child. She was almost guaranteed to be late. Besides, this wasn’t really his domain, anyway. He figured that he’d leaving all the womanly discussions to his daughters and his ex-wife, and that he’d be more than happy with simply signing off the billing statements that came from the insurance company on the third Wednesday of every month.

Before Grantaire knew it, they had reached the office. Grantaire scouted out Molly's car and parked near it before following Eponine inside and up to the front desk. While he walked, he looked around the office, immediately feeling out of place among the pregnant women sitting in the lush, wine-colored velour sofas that were placed around the room in what was meant to be a comforting setting.

Grantaire shook his head and went up to the front desk, ignoring the prickling feeling at the back of his neck that said that one of the ladies were watching him. The young woman working at the desk, however, only looked up when she heard the bell that chimed from the welcome mat placed directly in front of her counter. She gave them a warm smile before asking, “Can I help you?”

Eponine stepped forward, taking Grantaire’s hand in her own and giving the woman a warm smile. “Yes, hello. Our daughter, Molly Partridge, is here for an appointment, and she told us to come in so that we can find out the gender of her baby all together.”

The receptionist nodded, tapping something into her computer before turning back to the ex-couple, her smile never leaving her face. “She’s in room three. You two are more than welcome to go on and head back there, if you’d like.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” Eponine pointed to a white door to the left of the receptionist’s desk. “Is it through there?”

The receptionist nodded. Eponine adjusted her fingers so that they separated Grantaire’s. She glanced over at him as she opened the door and began to walk down the brightly-lit hallway. “Do you remember when we came to this exact location to find out if Danny was a boy or a girl, and they kept _insisting_ we were having a daughter until he was born with his little pink penis?”

Grantaire snorted, the uncomfortable feeling he had in the waiting room going away now that he was alone with his ex-wife and away from all the prying eyes of the other patients. “Hey, at least _something_ matched the color of his bedroom walls until we bothered repainting it . . . when Molly was born much later.”

“Yeah, and do you remember how mad he got at us when we made it into a superhero room without asking him first, and he made us take down all the wallpaper and paint the walls pink again?”

Grantaire smiled and nodded. “Yeah. Remember him getting stuck in the paper that we took down, and he pretended that he was a bug trapped in one of those hanging fly tapes?”

“Of course I do. I was stuck cleaning that glue out of his hair for a month.” Eponine gave Grantaire a smile before wrapping her knuckles on the door to number three, which Grantaire hadn’t even noticed that they had reached. The technician walked over and opened the door. Molly was sitting in a recliner across the room, her shirt pulled up to reveal that the technician had already begun to apply to ultrasound gel to her abdomen. 

Grantaire followed his wife over to the bed, nerves suddenly filling his stomach as he took a seat next to the chair and took Molly’s hand, his eyes moving back and forth between her belly, and the image on the screen. When he looked at her belly, he could tell that the baby was active, as right below the edge of the shirt, Grantaire could see a large bulge that was moving around in small circles, but when he looked up at the screen, all he could see was him or her sucking their thumb.

Molly looked over at Grantaire and smiled, leaning her head against her father’s chest as he scooted his chair closer to hers before taking a hold of Eponine’s hand and directing her to sit on the arm. Molly’s smile grew as her mom ran her fingers along the largest bulge of Molly’s belly. “You ready to find out if you’re having a grandson or a granddaughter?” Molly asked, tilting her head back to get a better look at her father before looking to her mother.

“Of course we are, honey,” Eponine answered, taking Molly’s hand and squeezing lightly. She moved from the arm of the recliner down to the edge of Grantaire’s chair and looked over at the technician. She was a cute young woman in her twenties with copper-colored hair and chocolate-brown eyes, and was wearing a nametag that said “Hannah.”

Hannah put more ultrasound gel on Molly’s enlarged stomach and put the wand back against her skin before glancing over at the ultrasound screen. She stared at it for a few minutes before looking back to Molly, a smile on her face and a twinkle in her eyes. “All right, Miss Partridge, are you ready to find out whether you will be having a little boy or a little girl?”

“Yes, please!”

“Wonderful.” Her smile grew. “You’re having a little girl.”

Molly let out an excited squeal, and her smile spread across her cheeks as she turned to look at her parents. Eponine leaned in and pulled her to her chest in a hug. Grantaire, too, couldn’t stop the wide smile that spread across his face.

 

***

 

An hour and a half later, the appointment had ended, Molly had left to get Kieran, Eponine had been dropped off at Brent’s house, and Grantaire had gone to the nearest baby clothing store to pick up the cutest thing that he could find for little Carlen Grace. He found a pink gingham dress with a ruffled diaper cover, and a pair of knit white booties that he knew that Molly would absolutely love.

He picked up a couple of fuzzy stuffed animals from Wal-Mart, too, before going to the grocery store. He knew that it was just going to be Enjolras and him for dinner, but regardless, he was in the mood to cook. He had overheard Molly and Enjolras talking about how much Enjolras loved (and was craving) chicken pomodoro, so Grantaire opened up a search engine on his phone and found a recipe that he thought he would be able to make. He found all the ingredients and threw them into his baskets before going to the pasta aisle and picking out a few different types, just in case the chicken didn’t turn out the way that it was supposed to.

Once he was done getting everything that he needed, he went to the floral section of the store and grabbed a couple of different of different bouquets so that the house would feel prettier, and make Enjolras feel more comfortable being alone with Grantaire. He thought about grabbing a movie, but decided that Netflix would have to do. A bottle of wine, though . . . that wasn’t too suggestive, was it? Grantaire had always been a wine man, himself, but maybe that was something that was too formal for a first not-date.

Regardless of its appropriateness, Grantaire’s favorite brand of wine had ended up being on sale, so he bought it and, if Enjolras had a problem with it, he could deal with it himself.

. . . as for Grantaire, he was going to ignore his problems with a nice glass of wine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

18

 

By one o'clock, Enjolras was awake, dressed, and was waiting outside of the Partridge home for Rory to come and pick him up. They had agreed on 1:15, but Enjolras had begun to go stir crazy in the stifling heat of the house, so he grabbed his wallet, the spare set of house keys, and a bottle of lemonade, and headed out to wait on the wind-conditioned porch.

He had just begun to sweat when Rory pulled up to the curb and honked the horn. Enjolras looked up from his phone and went down to the car, knocking on the window for Rory to unlock the passenger side before getting in.

He glanced into the back seat to see a full-grown black-and-white Great Dane with green eyes staring at him, its head cocking to the side as it studied him and gauged whether or not Enjolras was a threat. Next to it was a Pharaoh hound lying on its side, her eyelids heavy with sleep and her tail lifting up a few times in a mock wag before it slumped back down

The Pharaoh hound, Enjolras recognized. Her name was Bella, and Andrew had had her for several years. The last time that Enjolras and Andrew had talked about his pets, though, he had still only had one, and he didn’t remember Rory saying anything about dog-sitting, or about getting a second dog.

Enjolras stared at the Great Dane for a few more seconds before looking at Rory. “Whose dog is that? And where are we going that we can take them?”

The larger dog stood up as best he could in the small car and stuck his face between the seats, letting his snout rest on the center console as he stared up at Rory with fond eyes. Rory reached a hand over and scratched the dog's ears, his eyes still focused on the road.

“Andrew and I are house-sitting for our friend Maggie, so I figured we could just head on over there and order Chinese or something. And as for this guy . . . Andrew went out after we finished up with you guys to get more food for Bella, and he came back with Eisenhower, here.”

The dog in question lifted his head, his long tongue lolling out and landing on the top of Enjolras's hand. Enjolras pulled his hand back and wiped it on his jeans. “And how do you feel about this new addition to the family?”

Rory made a noise in the back of his throat. “Well, I wish he would have talked to me about it, but at least we'll hopefully have that great back yard for him to play in.”

“Yeah, that's true. Did you and Andrew really like the house that much?”

“Yeah. Didn't you?”

“Yeah.”

Rory pulled into a neighborhood and up to a house, the driveway vacant of Andrew's car.

Enjolras gave Rory a look of confusion, as he could have sworn that when he agreed to get lunch with Rory, he agreed to spending time with Andrew, too. “Isn't Andrew ordering food with us, too?”

Rory shook his head. “No, he's trying to get the next chapter of his book done, so he's hanging out at the apartment until he finishes writing. He might be over in the next couple of hours, though. I don't really know.”

Enjolras shrugged, “Okay.” He followed Rory's lead and climbed out of the car and up to the house. Bella went straight up to the front door, too, but Eisenhower took off down the driveway and across the street.

Rory let out a low growl and tossed Enjolras the keys before taking off and chasing after the dog. Eisenhower, however, obviously wasn't _really_ trying to get away from Rory. He led his owner around the block a couple before coming right back to the front door, his tail wagging so hard that it shook his entire body while he licked at the side of Bella’s muzzle affectionately.

Enjolras opened the door and Eisenhower rushed inside, immediately going through the living room to the kitchen, where he skidded to a stop in front of a metal bowl. He lapped at the water, his massive maw dripping the liquid all over the linoleum floor.

Rory reached the house a little after Eisenhower did, his curly black hair disheveled and his cheeks flushed a dark red. “Stupid dog,” he muttered, crouching down and kissing Bella on the snout. “You never run away from your daddies like your stupid giant of a brother, do you, girl?”

Bella licked Rory's cheek before squirming out from under his hand and running into the kitchen, barking playfully before chasing Eisenhower out of the kitchen and up to the second level of the house.

Rory shook his head and the front door, muttering under his breath again. “Why he thought getting a barely-trained Great Dane was a good idea when we are only a few months away from adopting a baby, I will never understand.”

Enjolras snorted. From what Rory had told him about Andrew (and from what he had learned at the family functions that Rory had brought Andrew to), the man was a bit reckless. Apparently, Rory and he met when Andrew moved to New York City on a whim to live on the streets for two months, simply so that he could come up with a new idea for him to base a book off of.

Rory ignored the growling sound from upstairs and went to the kitchen to grab one of the menus that the homeowner had left attached to the fridge. “So, do you know what you want?” He held the menu in Enjolras’s direction.

Enjolras grabbed it and skimmed the menu, smiling when he saw that what he normally ordered back in Eugene on the menu. “Yeah, I want the tofu vegetable, without carrots or mushrooms.”

“All right. If you want to go on in to the living room and go to Netflix on the Roku, I’ll order our food.”

“Okay.” Enjolras glanced up the stairs as a crash echoed throughout the house before following Rory’s orders. He turned the television on and grabbed the Roku remote, flipping to the Netflix tab and opening up the first movie that he found which, it turned out, was a psychological thriller by the name of _The Taking of Deborah Logan_. He turned it on and leaned back, pausing it as the first scene opened up.

Rory came in a few minutes later, Bella and Eisenhower bounding along behind him with their tongues out and their eyes sparkling with glee. Rory sat down on the couch next to Enjolras, taking out his phone and typing something into it before taking the remote from Enjolras and clicking play. Eisenhower tried to get up on the couch, too, but Rory pushed him away, and his ears dropped before he skulked over to where Bella was on the entry-way rug, lying down next to her and resting his chin on her back.

Twenty minutes later, Enjolras and Rory had just begun to really get in to the film when the doorbell rang. Rory paused the movie and went to the door to get the food, coming back a few minutes later with a large, aromatic brown paper bag. He set it on the coffee table before he went to the kitchen and grabbed two bowls and some forks. He brought them into the living room, handing one of each to Enjolras. 

Enjolras got out his food and poured the rice in first before pouring in the tofu-vegetable mixture. He mixed them together and took a bite, letting out a quiet sound at the perfect texture that the tofu had been cooked to. The vegetables, too, were delicious, and were steamed just enough that they were still crisp, but melted in his mouth. He snuck a few bits of cabbage to the dogs before locking his attention back on the movie.

 

***

 

Two hours later, the movie was over, and Rory and Enjolras had watched a few episodes of Rory’s new favorite show, _Master of None_. They had also raided the homeowner’s freezer and had found enough sweets to make massive banana splits for themselves. They were delicious, and sweet enough to satisfy any sugar cravings that Enjolras had ever experienced, or would experience ever again.

They had just finished the ice cream and the episode that they were on when Enjolras decided that it was time for him to head back to the Partridge house. He was getting tired, and Rory had told him that Andrew was going to head over soon, anyway. Enjolras would have enjoyed to spend time with Andrew, but if the annoyance that Rory was still showing towards Eisenhower was any indication of how things were going between them, he wasn’t sure that he wanted to stay. Rory offered to drive Enjolras home, but it was a nice enough day that Enjolras had no problem with walking the three miles back to the house.

While he walked, he thought about Grantaire, and fantasized about what was going to happen with it just being the two of them alone in the house all weekend. He didn’t think that anything _romantic_ would happen, but a little bit of an over-active imagination never hurt anyone.

Enjolras got so deep into his imagination that he hardly even noticed the time passing until he was already at the Partridge driveway. He pulled the spare key out of his pocket and went to unlock the front door, only to find that it had already been unlocked. He hadn’t noticed Grantaire’s car in the driveway, but when he glanced back over his shoulder, sure enough, it was there.

Enjolras went inside, closing the door quietly behind him. “Grantaire? You home?”

“In here!” Grantaire called out, his voice coming from the direction of the kitchen. Enjolras put the keys down on the table by the door and went into the kitchen where, sure enough, Grantaire was. He was standing at the counter with all sorts of ingredients around him. He looked up when Enjolras entered, and gave him a warm smile. “Hey. How was hanging out with Rory?”

“It was fine, we watched some movies and ordered Chinese.” The Chinese hadn’t filled him up, though, and his stomach growled as he looked at all the different ingredients. He couldn’t exactly tell, but it looked like he was making some sort of chicken dish, and _everyone_ knew that Enjolras was a chicken fanatic. “Can I help with anything?”

Grantaire looked around before his eyes settled on a bowl of egg mixture and a bowl of flour. He picked up the package of chicken breasts and handed them to Enjolras. “You can put the egg and flour on these, if you want.”

“All right.”

Enjolras cut open the plastic surrounding the chicken and took out the first piece, dipping it in the eggs before putting it in the flour, making sure that it was thoroughly covered before placing it onto the plate that Grantaire slid his way.

He did a few more pieces before the slimy feeling of the egg-flour goo on his fingers made him feel queasy. He looked over at Grantaire, his nose wrinkling in disgust as he scraped the mixture off his fingers. “Do you have anything else that I can do? You know, that doesn’t end up with my hands feeling like they’ve been blown by a slug?”

Grantaire snorted at the description, but nodded. He pulled the bowls away from Enjolras and stepped away from the sink so he could clean up before putting the bag of potatoes and a potato peeler at his spot. “Yeah, you can peel the potatoes for mashed potatoes.”

“Okay.” Enjolras started to walk towards the sink, but his hand got caught on the edge of the flour bowl, and the entire thing tipped over and covered the front of his shirt. “Ah, shit,” he mumbled, staring down at the mess and trying to keep his sticky fingers from catching on the cloth as he used his palm to try and rub the powder away.

It didn’t work, and Enjolras ended up getting his hand stuck to his shirt. Grantaire started to laugh and dampened a washcloth before coming over and helping, taking Enjolras’s hand in his and wiping the goo from off his fingers, as well as the flour from off his shirt.

Enjolras’s breath caught from how close he was to Grantaire, and it took all of his willpower not to lean in the last few inches and press his lips to Grantaire’s neck, or his cheek, or, God forbid, his lips.

Grantaire, it seemed, didn’t have that same willpower, and he only waited a few seconds before the arm that wasn’t holding the rag wrapped around Enjolras’s lower back and pulled him close, his head turning to capture Enjolras’s lips in a sweet kiss.

Enjolras’s eyes widened in shock before they fluttered shut, his heart racing and leaping up to his throat. He melted into the sensation, happiness filling his very being as he kissed Grantaire . . . until he remembered who it was that he was kissing.

He pushed Grantaire off of him and raced past him, going up the stairs and running up to his room. He locked the door behind him and threw himself on his bed, his mind whirring as he thought about how wrong it was that he kissed a married man, _especially_ one who was his best friend’s father.

He had made a huge mistake.

 

***

 

Grantaire’s stomach sunk as he watched Enjolras rush out of the kitchen, the potato peeler that he had in front of him clattering to the floor in his haste the get as far away from Grantaire as possible. Grantaire leaned down and picked it back up, clenching his teeth and letting out a long breath through his nose.

He put the potato peeler in the sink before leaning against the counter, gripping at the edges of the marble so hard that his knuckles turned white. God, how could he have been so _stupid_? He shouldn’t have listened to anything that Eponine said. It was just that when he saw Enjolras standing there, looking adorable covered in flour and less than a foot away from him, he just couldn’t help it. Enjolras’s eyes had gotten wide when Grantaire had stepped forward, his eyes darting down to Grantaire’s lips before his tongue slipped out of the corner of his mouth . . . and Grantaire didn’t have a choice in the matter any longer.

He had been right, though, his feelings for Enjolras ran much, _much_ deeper than simple feelings of attraction, went past the stage of being a massive crush. Somewhere over the course of the last few weeks, he had fallen in love with Enjolras, and he had fallen _hard._

Having Enjolras storm out like he had, though . . . Grantaire didn’t know how he was supposed to react. His stomach was tying itself into knots, and his throat felt like it was closing. He tried his best to swallow, but it felt like there were knives carving their way down the soft flesh. He clenched his hands into fists, and dug his fingernails into his palm.

Grantaire shook his head, trying to make the crushing feeling in his chest go away. He knew that this was going to happen, so he didn’t understand why he was taking it so badly. If Enjolras had been interested, he would have known about it already. Enjolras would have kissed him first, or would have come to him with his feelings. That was how it worked, wasn’t it? Things had been different when Grantaire was younger, and if he had grown up in today’s world, maybe he would have kept on dating guys after Greg and he had split up. If Enjolras was gay, and interested in Grantaire, he could have admitted to him without having to worry about what was going to happen to him if he came out.

The more Grantaire thought about it, though, the more that it made sense to him that Enjolras didn’t want to be with him. There were over twenty years that separated them in age, and Grantaire was an old man compared to him. Hell, if Danny was still alive, then Enjolras would have been several years younger than one of Grantaire’s children.

He shook his head. It didn’t matter that Danny wasn’t alive, he was still Grantaire’s son, and Enjolras was _still_ only a year older than Molly. He could be Enjolras’s father, for fuck’s sake. He didn’t know why he thought any differently about his chances.

Grantaire turned off the stove and shoved the egg-coated chicken into the fridge. While he was there, he grabbed a couple of Smirnoffs from the door and took them up to his bedroom. He unscrewed one of the caps and flipped on the television, scrolling through the channels until he found something that he could use to drain out the static that traveled from his head to his heart. He took a big sip of his beverage and lied back against the pillows.

As he fell asleep, he barely even noticed the silent tears that had begun to roll down his cheeks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

19

 

The next morning, Grantaire was feeling worse about what he had done. He knew that, realistically, he should be acting like an adult and talking to Enjolras about what happened. Enjolras _was_ going to be staying with them for another three weeks, and Grantaire _really_ didn’t want things to be awkward between them. Eponine would know right away what the problem was, but what would Molly or Kieran think? Molly would be mad at him for making a move on her friend, and Kieran . . . well, she was too young to understand.

Grantaire didn’t want to be an adult, though. He wanted to crawl all the way down to the bottom of his bed and stay there, hidden away from all of the problems that he had created for himself. He wanted to grab another Smirnoff from the refrigerator, and drink as many as it took to forget the mistake that he made.

Regardless of how much he wanted to hide, though, Grantaire was _starving,_ and he needed to get something to eat. He let out a groan and pushed back the covers. He turned and put his toes on the floor, shoving his feet into his scruffy blue slippers and wandering down to the kitchen. He went to the pantry and grabbed a banana, a bagel, and a bit of peanut butter. He cut the bagel in half and toasted it before putting the toppings on it.

While he ate, Grantaire pulled his phone out of his pocket, and began to scroll through his apps aimlessly. He thought about texting Eponine, and begging her to come home early so that he didn’t have to be left alone with Enjolras, but he didn’t want to ruin her weekend. She had been right, this _was_ Brent’s first niece, and Eponine deserved to partake in Brent’s happiness without having to deal with her ex-husband acting like a rejected teenager. He had done enough of that recently, and had really been . . . what had she called him? A “thirteen-year-old girl?”

Well, she definitely wasn’t wrong. He really was acting immature, and he needed to get his act together. He wasn’t a child anymore, and he hadn’t been for a long time.

He sighed, putting down his phone and looking down at the table as he took the last few bites of his bagel. He had suddenly lost all traces of his appetite. He wasn’t surprised; he knew that his lack of hunger came from all the realizations that he was coming to all at once. He pushed the plate away with a look of disgust, dropping his head down onto the table and letting out a loud sigh.

After a few minutes, Grantaire lifted his head from the table, and took the plate over to the counter. He threw his napkin away and put the plate into the sink before shoving his hands down into his pajama pockets and going upstairs to Danny/Enjolras’s room.

Grantaire hesitated before knocking on the wood and waiting for Enjolras to respond. Enjolras didn’t answer. Grantaire ground his teeth together and waited, balling his hands and rotating his fingers against his palm before trying again. “Enjolras? I want to talk to you about last night.”

There was the sound of sheets rustling, and then footsteps. Enjolras didn’t open the door at first, but Grantaire knew by the thud on the other side that he was there, listening.

Grantaire sighed. He knew that, once again, he was being childish, but he was glad that he didn’t have to look at Enjolras while they talked . . . or, more likely, while he talked and Enjolras listened. If he had to look at Enjolras, and Enjolras was filled with anger . . . he didn’t know how he would take it. If Enjolras was sad, or disgusted, Grantaire would have to deal with the feelings of heartbreak and confusion all over again.

Grantaire cleared his throat before beginning to speak. “I’m not going to say that I’m sorry that I kissed you, Enjolras. I don’t regret it, and I won’t lie and tell you that I didn’t want it. I don’t know if you have told Molly what I did, or if you’ve decided just to keep it to yourself. All I know is that I really, _really_ like you, Enjolras, and I just want you to do whatever you need me to do to keep this from being uncomfortable the rest of your time with our family, okay? I never meant . . . I never meant to make you uncomfortable.”

Grantaire paused, waiting to see if Enjolras would respond. He didn’t. He did, however, open the door a crack, so that he could hear Grantaire better. Grantaire stared through the crack and contemplated going in before deciding that Enjolras wouldn’t like that. He decided that it was better just to keep on talking. “Look, Enjolras, I’m sorry if I scared you. You’re not gay. I get it.” He shook his head. “Actually, maybe you _are_ gay. It doesn’t really matter, I guess. I should have asked before I kissed you. It was improper of me, and I apologize.”

Grantaire pressed his back against the wall and slid down, kicking his feet out in front of him. He should probably go back downstairs, but he didn’t want to. Now that he had told Enjolras about what he was thinking, and what he felt, he should leave the much-younger man alone, and give him some time to adjust.

Enjolras had other plans, and opened the door.

 

***

 

Enjolras bit his lip before stepping out into the light of the hallway, his palms sweating and his legs trembling as he looked at Grantaire. “But you’re married. How can you be interested in me if you’re married?”

Grantaire squeezed his eyes shut rather than answer. Enjolras’s stomach dropped, and it took all he had not to turn back around and hide back in the bedroom. He wanted to pull the covers up over his head and block everything out until Rory and Andrew officially had their home, or at least until they replaced their old sofa with one that pulled out into a bed. He had almost stepped back in, too, and shut the door in Grantaire’s face when Grantaire finally answered.

“Eponine and me . . . we haven’t been married for over a year, Enjolras. We haven’t told the girls because we just haven’t figured out the words to say it to them, but it’s true. Eponine is with a man named Brent, and me . . . Enjolras, I’m gay, and I’m in love with you.”

Enjolras shook his head. “No, you’re not. You just think you are. Why would you be in love with me?” He leaned against the doorframe, his eyes locking on the stained carpet of the hall. He started to dig the nails of his left hand into his right bicep, but Grantaire reached out and pulled his hand away, interlacing their fingers before bringing their joined hands up to kiss Enjolras’s nails.

“You’re amazing, and beautiful, and such a wonderful friend to my daughter. Why wouldn’t I be in love with you?” He hesitated before taking a step closer, pulling Enjolras away from the doorframe and wrapping an arm around his waist so that their position echoed what it had been in the kitchen the previous day. He held him close, their chests only a few inches from one another.

Enjolras’s mouth went dry, and he lifted a hand tentatively, waiting for Grantaire’s nod before letting his fingertips trail along the waistband of Grantaire’s sweatpants. He didn’t know whether to believe him or not, but the temptation to give in to Grantaire was too strong for him to resist. He took a deep breath before whispering, “You . . . you can kiss me, if you want to.” He risked a glance up at Grantaire’s face before darting his eyes back down in embarrassment. He wasn’t sure whether or not Grantaire was actually going to do it, but if he wasn’t, Enjolras couldn’t bear to continue looking at him.

Grantaire seemed to want this just as bad as he did, though. He put a finger below Enjolras’s chin and lifted his head up, staring him in the eyes as he leaned forward and pressed their lips together. Enjolras’s eyes widened in shock before they fluttered shut, his hand moving of its own accord to cup the back of Grantaire’s neck.

Grantaire must have taken that as an invitation to go further, as he went from kissing Enjolras sweetly to pressing him against the wall, his tongue darting out to invade Enjolras’s mouth. Enjolras reacted just as strongly, the hand that was on the back of Grantaire’s neck moving down to grab his rear, squeezing one of the globes tightly. He let out a quiet moan as he lifted one of his legs to wrap around Grantaire’s hips, his cock swelling as he felt Grantaire harden against him.

“I want to touch you,” Grantaire grunted, clumsily trying to unbutton Enjolras’s pajama pants. Enjolras pushed his hands away and did it himself, peeling the flannel down his legs before shucking off his boxers. Grantaire started to move his hand to grasp Enjolras’s length, but Enjolras didn’t want things to be like that for their first time together. He wanted to feel Grantaire come apart in his hands, and he wasn’t going to waste time cumming, himself, when he could be getting Grantaire off.

 Enjolras’s youth worked to his advantage, and he was able to spin them around and press Grantaire to the wall before the older man even realized that they were changing position. “I get to touch you first,” he murmured, yanking down Grantaire’s sweats and dropping to his knees, digging his fingers into Grantaire’s hips to hold him back from thrusting while he took Grantaire’s cock into his mouth.

Enjolras’s mind filled with white noise while he worked Grantaire up to his release, alternating between sucking on his cock and playing with his balls, the soft, silky skin heavy on his tongue. He was overwhelmed by the feeling of Grantaire’s dark-brown pubic hair brushing against the tip of his nose, and on the musky smell that alerted Enjolras that Grantaire was all man. He couldn’t get enough of him.

When Grantaire came, it was like everything in Enjolras’s life had led up to that very moment. His heart felt like it was going to explode right out of his chest, and he was so filled with love that he thought it had to be overflowing from his mouth onto Grantaire’s penis. He was sure that Grantaire could feel how much this meant to him, and if the glazed-over, affection-filled eyes that Grantaire had locked on him the entire time that he was sucking him off was any indication, Grantaire felt the exact same way.

Grantaire carted his fingers through Enjolras’s as his moans got louder, and Enjolras stopped holding back Grantaire’s hips. Grantaire immediately started to set a faster pace now that he could freely thrust in and out of Enjolras’s mouth. It was turning Enjolras on like crazy, and he struggled to resist the urge to jerk himself off in time to Grantaire’s thrusts. He knew, though, that Grantaire wanted a chance to touch him, too, and that wouldn’t happen if Enjolras got off too quickly.

Grantaire, on the other hand, didn’t seem to care if he came quickly, and he stopped massaging Enjolras’s scalp in favor of yanking at his hair, moaning, “Oh, God, Enjolras, that feels amazing, oh, God, I’m going to cum if you keep doing that.”

Enjolras sucked harder, reaching up to tug at Grantaire’s balls in encouragement. Grantaire didn’t need any encouragement, though, and came less than a minute later, coating Enjolras’s tongue and throat with his seed.

Enjolras swallowed it all down before releasing Grantaire’s cock and sitting back on his heels, smiling up at the older man as he struggled to catch his breath. Grantaire pressed a hand over his eyes before running it down his face, sliding down the wall until he was sitting on the ground across from Enjolras, a sated smile on his face.

Once he had caught his breath, and the redness in his cheeks had gone down some, he put a hand on Enjolras’s chest and pushed him backwards before rolling up to his knees and licking his lips, staring down at Enjolras’s still-swollen cock.

“Now, it’s my turn.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

20

 

Grantaire had known that Enjolras was incredibly attractive, but seeing him after a run and seeing him completely naked, his uncut cock heavy and full, were two completely different experiences. Sex-driven Enjolras was _stunning_.

Grantaire ran his hands over Enjolras’s abdomen, biting down on his lip as he took notice of all the freckles that sprawled down across his stomach and down the length of his cock. His mouth began to water, and he darted his tongue out to lap at the precum that was already beginning to bead up at the tip. He couldn’t help but chuckle at the loud moan that Enjolras let out, a soft, high-pitched giggle escaping at the end of the sound.

Grantaire wrapped his fingers around the base of the shaft, slowly moving them up and down as he adjusted himself so that the bare skin of his knees wasn’t rubbing so hard against the feathery carpet of the hall. He dropped his mouth down as far as it would go, his mind spinning as he remembered what it was like to be with someone that he so desperately desired.

He wasn’t able to get hard again, but his heart was racing and his mind was reeling as though he had never come. He was seeing stars behind his eyelids every time Enjolras’s foreskin tickled the back of his throat, and the feeling only grew stronger when Enjolras came with a shout.

Grantaire’s only regret was that their first time together took place in a hallway, rather than in a bed.

He eased himself off of Enjolras’s softening cock. He placed his hands on either side of Enjolras’s hips, rotating his thumbs in circles and placing gentle kisses along the curve of his pelvis. His hip bones stuck out deliciously, and he ran his tongue over the dips and crevices before slithering further up the carpet so that he was lying parallel to Enjolras. He wrapped an arm around Enjolras’s waist and put his head on Enjolras’s shoulder, leaning in to give him a gentle kiss on the cheek.

Enjolras let out a content sound. “That was fun,” he murmured, taking the arm closest to Grantaire and wrapping it around the older-man’s shoulders.

Grantaire began to respond, but he ended up letting out a loud yawn. Enjolras chuckled. “We can go back to sleep for a little bit if you want,” he suggested, moving his hand up to smooth down Grantaire’s chocolate hair. “We could go lie down on the couch or your bed or something.”

Grantaire nodded. “That sounds nice.” He let out another yawn before sitting up and pushing himself into a standing position. He pulled Enjolras up and led him to the master bedroom, folding down the already-unmade covers so that Enjolras and he could snuggle up and just enjoy one another’s company.

It took less than ten minutes before both the men were fast asleep.

 

***

 

Several hours later, Enjolras and Grantaire _still_ hadn’t left the bed. They had pleasured one another several times, and they had brought Grantaire’s laptop into the room so that they could watch movies. They switched back and forth with who was holding who, but it was primarily Enjolras who was leaning against the wall of pillows that they had put up against the headboard, while Grantaire rested his head on Enjolras’s chest, his arm resting on Enjolras’s stomach and his fingers tracing designs into Enjolras’s hip.

They had brought bowls of spumoni ice cream up to snack on, as well as a bag of popcorn, a box of Wheat Thins, and several bottles of Smirnoff Ice and Mike’s Hard Lemonade. They alternated between what they each drank so that they didn’t grow tired of one thing, and their kisses got sweeter and sweeter the more alcohol that was in their system.

The room had just begun to spin when Enjolras finished his fourth drink late in the evening. The pleasant buzz wasn’t enough to remind him that Grantaire hadn’t made a sound in several scenes, though, and that his breathing was quiet and even. Enjolras leaned back and stared at his host, smiling softly when he realized that Grantaire had, at some point, fallen fast asleep in his lover’s arms.

Enjolras kissed his forehead and adjusted his position so that Grantaire was resting on his side before he lied down as well, throwing his arm over Grantaire’s waist and snuggling into his back.

It took a while for him to fall asleep, though, and while he rested there, listening to the sound of Grantaire’s breathing, his mind couldn’t help but wander towards darker thoughts. He thought about his last relationship, and how poorly it had gone when he had given his heart to someone fully.

Enjolras didn’t know how he was going to survive when Davey and he broke up. He didn’t go to class, or work, or even across campus to get food. He nearly had to repeat the semester, but Courfeyrac knocked some sense into him when he somehow managed to get the spare set of dorm keys, and broke in. He forced Enjolras to shower, and dragged him to his classes every day for three weeks. It was the only reason why he passed.

It was horrible, and it wasn’t an experience that he had any desire to repeat.

With Grantaire, though, he had a feeling that any separation they would have in the future would destroy him more than any petty past break up could have. Hell, he wasn’t even in a real relationship with Grantaire, and his heart already felt fuller than it had with Davey. He knew that Grantaire was it for him, was the man that he was destined to be with for the rest of his life.

No matter how sure he felt, though, Enjolras couldn’t help but feel like maybe he wasn’t the same thing to Grantaire. There was so much working against them, it just didn’t seem like it was possible for it to really work out. Especially when Molly and Kieran . . .

 _Molly._ Enjolras kissed the back of Grantaire’s neck before rolling over to face the opposite wall, squeezing his eyes shut and breathing in sharply through his nose. Sure, they had been very good friends before Enjolras had come with her to St. Louis, but things had changed since the start of the summer. They had forged such a strong bond with one another that Enjolras almost felt like he had back the sister that he lost, and it was like they were part of each other’s hearts and souls. 

He briefly thought, at one point during the early days of their friendship, that he could see himself having a relationship with Molly, but he accidently walked in on her changing clothes one day, and quickly knew that it would never work out. He loved her as a best friend, though, and he loved her fiercely. He didn’t know what he would do without her friendship when they were still at school, but now, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to function in St. Louis without having her and her family to depend on. Sure, he had Andrew and Rory, but he honestly felt as though he was more a part of his family than he was of his own.

With that thought in mind, Enjolras knew what he had to do. He rolled back over and kissed Grantaire on the neck again, holding him close and realizing that they were never going to have this again. Enjolras wrapped his arms as tightly around Grantaire’s waist as he could without waking him, and pressed his nose into the back of Grantaire’s neck, simply breathing in the smell of him, and feeling his heart express its love in every beat.

This would be a night that Enjolras cherished for the rest of his life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

21

 

When Grantaire awoke the next morning, Enjolras was still lying in the bed, his arms and legs spread out and his head resting on its right side. The early-morning sunlight was streaming in through the blinds and illuminating his face in thick stripes, bending over the bridge of his nose and running over his supple lips.

Grantaire couldn’t help himself as he stared. He _had_ to lean down and give Enjolras a quick kiss before he pushed the covers back off of his body and climbed out of bed. He did his best not to wake Enjolras as he kissed his forehead again and tucked him back in. He fixed the blankets at the end of the bed so that Enjolras’s feet wouldn’t get cold before grabbing his phone off the bedside table and leaving the room.

As he walked downstairs, he thought about what he wanted to make for breakfast. There was still several hours before anyone else was due to be home, so he didn’t want to make anything too large, or anything that he wouldn’t be able to save for the girls. He was craving chocolate chip pancakes, though, so that would most likely be what he made, provided they had all the right ingredients.

Luckily, it appeared that Eponine had picked up more chocolate chips on her last shopping trip. Grantaire pulled them out and got out all of the rest of the things that he would need to make pancakes. He gathered all the ingredients and a couple of bowls, and set to work mixing everything together.

He had almost finished the batter when his phone beeped, alerting him of a new text. He pulled it out of the one of the pockets of his pajama pants, and looked at the screen. It was from Eponine.

_Hey, hon. How’s your weekend going? Get anywhere with lover-boy? ;)_

Grantaire chuckled. He wasn’t surprised that she had texted him to see how his relationship with Enjolras was going, but he _was_ surprised that she had waited until the final morning to do so. He had thought that she would have texted him this very first night and tried to convince him to make a move right there and then.

Come to think of it, though, that’s kind of what Grantaire did, wasn’t it? He kissed him, at least, and even if it didn’t end very well, at least he tried. Last night seemed to work out pretty well, though.

Grantaire clicked the “reply” button on the button of the message. _Hey, you. Things are . . . good, actually._

He hit “send,” and turned the griddle on. He dropped a pat of butter on it and rubbed it into the metal plate. He waited for it to start sizzling before he poured the first couple of circles of batter onto the pan.

The first and second batch turned out well, and Grantaire slid them onto plates before picking up his phone again, seeing that he had another message. It was once again from Eponine. _Oh? Well, I’m glad. Things are going well here, too. Carla is the sweetest thing, and Brent and I are having so much fun with his nephews._

Grantaire smiled at his phone. _Tell Brent hello. I’ll see you guys tonight. We will talk all about Enjolras then ;)_

He sent the message again before flipping the switch on his phone to turn it to silent. He shoved it into his pocket and took the last batch of pancakes off the griddle. He turned it off and put the pancakes onto two separate plates. He got out two glasses of milk and put them on a tray before taking them up to the bedroom. He put the tray on the top of the dresser and slid back in to bed next to Enjolras, wrapping an arm around his waist and kissing him on the cheek.

Enjolras didn’t respond at first, but after a few kisses, he began to stir. “Good morning,” he mumbled, angling his head down and pressing his face into his pillow. “Why are you up so early?”

“I made us breakfast.” He kissed Enjolras’s cheek again before standing up and grabbing the tray. He prodded Enjolras until he was sitting up before handing him one of the plates of pancakes and one of the glasses of milk.

Enjolras gave him a small smile before leaning over the side of the bed and grabbing Grantaire’s sweats and his tee-shirt, which he put on before putting the plate back on his lap. “Thanks. I love chocolate chip pancakes.”

There was something off to Enjolras’s voice. Grantaire looked at him in concern, hoping that it was nothing that he had done. He reached out to rub Enjolras’s shoulder, but Enjolras flinched away, and looked down at the sheets. Grantaire tried again, but Enjolras, once again, did nothing more but angle his body as far away as he possibly could in the king-sized bed.

Grantaire pulled his hand back, and forced himself to turn his focus entirely on his own plate of pancakes. He only made it about halfway through, though, before he had begun to feel much too nauseous to eat anymore. He put the plate to the side and turned so that he was facing Enjolras.

Enjolras, on the other hand, hadn’t even touched his pancakes, and was staring down at the comforter with a faraway look in his eyes. Grantaire was beginning to feel extremely worried. He tried to reach out again, but Enjolras scooted his entire body away and bit down on his lip before looking over at Grantaire with a sad look in his eyes.

“I think that we need to talk.”

 

***

 

Grantaire’s eyes widened and filled with fear at Enjolras’s words. Enjolras swallowed, desperately wishing that the scenario was different, and that they could be together without any inhibitions. He wished that he could hold Grantaire’s hand in public, that he could pull Grantaire to him whenever he wanted, and, most of all, that them being together wouldn’t hurt anyone else. That wasn’t the scenario, though, and none of those things would ever happen.

Enjolras closed his eyes for a moment and breathed deeply before opening them again and looking at Grantaire. “Grantaire, I love you, but what happened between us yesterday . . . it can never happen again. It has to stay between us, and it would be better for the both of us if we just forget that it ever happened.”

Grantaire reached out and tried to take Enjolras’s hand. Enjolras, however, wouldn’t let him, and crossed his arms protectively over his chest. He forced himself to keep his eyes anywhere but on Grantaire’s face. He couldn’t look at him. If he did, his resolve would crumple, and he would throw himself in Grantaire’s arms and tell him that he was lying, that he wanted yesterday to be the first day on the rest of their lives.

He felt tears start to form at the corners of his eyes, and he let out a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, scooting to the edge of the bed and trying to stand up.

This time, Grantaire was successful at grabbing his hand, and pulled him back. “No. You’re not doing this. We haven’t even had a chance to really explore this.  You’re not ending this already.” He pulled on Enjolras’s hand. “Enjolras, look at me.”

Enjolras shook his head, and bit his lip. “No, Grantaire. Molly is my best friend, and you’re her father. She’d hate me.” He shook his head again. “I can’t lose her as a friend. I’m so sorry.”

He ripped his hand from Grantaire’s grasp and ran out of the bedroom. He ran down the hall, down the stairs, and out the front door, and down the street. In fact, he didn’t stop running until he was miles away, and his vision was too blurry with tears for him to go any further. Fortunately, he had managed to end up somewhere secluded, so when he fell to his knees and sobbed, he didn’t have to worry about anyone interrupting him.

He had nearly stopped crying, but he started again anew when he realized that he had managed to land himself in the very park that Grantaire and he had met up in several weeks prior, when Enjolras was out for a run. He had been so innocent, and so ignorant of how strong his feelings were going to grow. He had thought that it would be a simple passing crush, something that he could control of the outcome of. He never would have imagined that that simple crush would make him feel like this.

He put his hands over his eyes and cried for what would never be, his mGrantaire swirling as he recalled the sounds and the faces that Grantaire had made when he was being pleasured. He had been so beautiful, by far the most stunning man that Enjolras had ever had or would ever have the pleasure of being with.

“Enjolras?”

Enjolras pressed his palms against his eyes, rubbing away some of the tears before he looked up to see whoever had said his name. It was Andrew, who was walking with Eisenhower and Bella. He reached down and hooked his arm around Enjolras’s shoulder, pulling him over to one of the park benches. “What’s wrong?”

Enjolras didn’t say anything, although he did try his hardest to calm his breathing and stifle his sobs. Eisenhower and Bella rubbed against his legs, comforting him in their own ways.

After several minutes, Enjolras was able to speak, and he looked up at Andrew. “I did something stupid,” he whispered, wiping away the stray tears that were still rolling over his cheeks. He leaned down and wrapped his arms around Eisenhower’s neck, lying forward and pressing his face against the dog’s soft fur.

Andrew put his hand on Enjolras’s shoulder and rubbed it. “I’m sure nothing that you did with Grantaire is as stupid as what I did to Rory when we first got together.”

That got Enjolras’s attention, and he sat up sharply, giving Andrew a look of fear. “It has nothing to do with R―”

“Shut up, Enjolras. I know it has _everything_ to do with Grantaire.”

Enjolras didn’t say anything, and he looked back out into the park. Andrew took that as a means to continue, and spoke. “I used Rory as a character in one of my books. I knew from the very first time that we met that I was going to exploit his experience so that I could get back in my publisher’s good graces, and I didn’t stop exploiting him until we had already been together for some time. Somehow, he forgave me, and now look at us. We're married, we have two dogs, a kid on the way, and we are making a bid on a house this week.”

He gave Enjolras a pointed look before saying, “So, if my fuck-up got us here, then I'm sure yours isn't going to kill you.”

Enjolras nodded silently, pursing his lips. He scratched Eisenhower behind the ears before holding his hand out for Bella to lick.

After a couple of minutes, he spoke. “I had sex with Grantaire.”

“Okay, and? Sure, he has Eponine, but I talked to some of my other friends around town, and she has a boyfriend of her own, mate. He cheating with you isn't the end of the world.”

Enjolras shook his head. “No, that's not the problem. Grantaire told me that Eponine and he have been divorced for over a year, but they just haven't gone public with it.”

“Okay, then what's wrong with you two sleeping together? I don't get it. I mean, you _are_ gay, right?”

“Well, yeah, but . . . ”

“Ad Grantaire wants you back, right?”

“Well, yeah, but . . . ”

“Then there's nothing stopping you.”

“His daughter is my best friend . . . ”

“And if she’s really your friend, she'll want you to be happy. Besides, you said that her parents are divorced, anyway.”

“Yeah, but Molly doesn't know that. She's going to be mad enough as it is when she finds out about that; she doesn't need this on top of it.”

Andrew shook his head and shrugged. “If you say so. I need to get going, though, I told Rory I would only be gone a half hour or so.” He stood up and pulled on Eisenhower’s leash, trying to stop him from attacking a bee that was buzzing idly around a wildflower. Eisenhower resisted, but after a few more tugs he bounded back to Andrew, his tail wagging and his tongue lolling out of the side of his mouth. Andrew had to pull on Bella’s leash, too, as she decided that her time was better spent catching up on her sleep next to Enjolras’s feet than it was enjoying the summer heat.

Enjolras leaned down and patted Bella to wake her up before giving Andrew a tight smile. “Thanks for talking to me, Andy.”

“Anything for family.” He finally got both Bella and Eisenhower to do what he wanted them to do, and he started to walk back down the path.

Enjolras watched them leave, shaking his head slightly as he thought about Andrew’s words. He was right, if Molly really was his friend, she’d want him to be happy . . . but could she handle that that happiness came from her father?

Enjolras had a lot more thinking to do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

22

 

As the hours wore on, Grantaire found it increasingly difficult to keep himself from falling too far into melancholia.  It wasn’t appropriate for him to be acting so heartbroken over someone so much younger than him, especially when Enjolras had been right. Hell, he just said what Grantaire had been thinking all along. They weren’t right for each other because Enjolras was Molly’s friend. If things were different, Grantaire was positive that they would have made an exquisite couple but, as things were, it would just never work out.

Unfortunately, no matter how many times Grantaire repeated those things to himself, he couldn’t help but desperately wish that things were different, and that, somehow, they would make it work. He tried to keep himself from being too hopeful, but every time he so much as heard a dog bark in the street, he jumped up to see if Enjolras had come back, if he’d changed his mind and decided that he wanted to try this thing with Grantaire, consequences be damned.

The was why when Kieran, Molly, and Eponine arrived home, he shot up and ran to the door, his heart in his throat and his lungs getting tight. When he looked through the window and saw his daughter’s car, however, his heart sank down to his toes, and he walked back over to the couch dejectedly. He didn’t want to make it obvious that he was bothered by anything, though, so he grabbed the remote and flipped on the television before closing his eyes and making it look like he had been taking a nap.

A few minutes later, the front door opened, and the women walked in, laughing and talking about something silly. Grantaire opened his eyes and looked over his cheekbones towards his girls. “Hey, you guys. How was your trip?”

“It was good.” Kieran walked over and gave her father a quick kiss. “I’m super tired now, though. I think I’m going to go upstairs and take a nap.”

“All right, sweetheart.” Kieran walked away. Molly smiled at him from across the room, her honey hair moving like waves over her shoulders as she rubbed her belly.

“I think I’m going to do the same,” she said, walking over and doing the same thing as her sister. She had trouble straightening back up, though, so Grantaire ended up having to sit up and help her. Molly made a face, but she accepted the help. “Thanks, Dad.”

“You’re welcome.” He patted her stomach before letting her walk out of the room and make her way upstairs.

Now, it was just Eponine and him. Eponine raised her eyebrows at him and sat down on the edge of the couch, her tongue sticking out of the corner of the mouth and her eyes sparkling playfully. “So, tell me everything. Where’s Enjolras now?”

Grantaire let out a strangled sound, and reached a hand up to run it through his hair. “He went out. I don’t know where he is.” He took a deep breath and ground his teeth together before telling Eponine the rest. “He . . . he decided that he doesn’t want me,” he choked out, his gaze dropping down to the floor and the knots in his stomach twisting around themselves so many times that he didn’t think he would ever be able to get free.

Eponine’s eyes widened, and she wrapped her arms around Grantaire’s shoulders. She pulled him to her chest, kissing the side of his head lovingly and whispering in his ear. “I’m so sorry, sweetie. Did he say why? I thought you said this morning things were going well.”

Grantaire nodded. “They really were. I . . . well, I kissed him Friday, and he pushed me away, but yesterday, he was the one who came to _me,_ and he seemed to like everything that we did to one another. I mean, we had sex, Eponine, and today . . . he just said the same thing I’ve been saying all along. Molly would kill the both of us, and he doesn’t want to lose her as a friend.” He shook his head. “Besides, I don’t want to lose her, either. It would break my heart to see her hate me because of how I feel about Enjolras.”

Eponine reached down and interlaced her fingers with Grantaire’s. “Honey, Molly isn’t going to be mad at you for that. You can’t help who you develop feelings for. Especially once we tell her and Kieran about . . . well, you know.” She squeezed his hand. “I think we should tell them now. Call them down, and tell them everything. What do you think?”

Grantaire shook his head, nausea nearly overwhelming him as he started to panic. He had already lost one person that was important to him that day, and he didn’t think that he could handle losing his daughters, as well. “I don’t want to tell them, Eponine. I want them to keep on thinking that everything is okay, and that we are still all one big, happy family. Why can’t we just let them keep on believing that?”

“Because they deserve to know, Grantaire. I know that I’ve been the one saying that we needed to wait to tell them anything, but . . . I hate seeing you like this, R. I know you love him and, if the way that he looks at you is worth anything, he loves you, too. I consider myself lucky that I got to spend twenty-seven years married to you, but honey, we’ve been divorced for over a year now. If we don’t tell them now, when are we going to find a chance to? When Brent and I get married? When we have another baby someday? When you have a lover?”

Grantaire took in the words that she was saying, and sighed. He nodded before getting up off the couch and going over to the foot of the steps, swallowing thickly in hopes of keeping the contents of his stomach, in his stomach. “Hey Molly? Kieran? Mom and I need you to come down here for a minute. We need to talk to you.”

He walked back over to the couch and, within a few minutes, Molly and Kieran had bounded down the steps and sat down on the adjacent loveseat. Grantaire spread his legs and leaned forward, interlacing his fingers and letting his hands drop down between his knees. He turned his gaze towards the floor and took a deep breath to steady himself.

Neither Eponine nor Grantaire said anything for several long, tense minutes, so Molly ended up being the one to break the silence, her brows furrowed and her thumbs running over one another anxiously. “Are you both okay?”

Grantaire could feel Eponine looking at him, but he couldn’t look up. He shook his head, letting Eponine answer. “There’s nothing wrong with either of us, sweethearts. Your father and I . . . ” she trailed off, once again looking at Grantaire for support. He briefly looked up and took her hand, squeezing it before moving his hand to her knee. She gave him a tight smile before looking back at their children. “Molly, Kieran, there’s no easy way for me to say this, so I’m just going to go ahead and spit it out. Your father and I . . . ”

Eponine trailed off again, apparently not able to get the news out. Grantaire took over for her, taking a deep breath before exclaiming, “We got a divorce.”

What Grantaire said didn’t seem to register to Molly and Kieran for quite a few seconds. They stared at him blankly before looking at one another, and looking to their mother. When what he said finally sunk in, though, they had very different reactions. Kieran’s face lost all of its coloration, and she hardened her gaze at her parents before crossing her arms and sinking back into the couch cushions. A few tears began to fall down her cheeks, but she didn’t say anything.

Molly, on the other hand, wanted an explanation. “You _what_? Why? Don’t Kieran and I get a say in whether you two stay married or not?”

Grantaire looked at Eponine, hoping that she would be the one who answered _this_ question . . . or all of them, really. He didn’t want to be the one to explain any of this, especially if the girls asked Eponine and him about the emotions that they each went through during their decision to dissolve their marriage. Truthfully, the divorce had hurt at first, but once he saw how happy Eponine was with Brent, and how free he was to simply be himself, he quickly found himself growing all right with it.

When it came to his daughters’ feelings, however, he doubted that it would be that simple. He had seen friends of his throughout his life deal with their parents getting divorced, and the pain that the child seemed to endure (no matter whether or not they were actually a “child” anymore), and he knew that none of this would be easy for his girls to hear. He had never been good with words, either, so Eponine _really_ needed to be the one who did all the talking, so that he wouldn’t cause more hurt and pain to his girls.

Eponine, unfortunately, seemed to be thinking the same thing about Grantaire as he was about her, so Grantaire didn’t have any choice but to speak after yet another long silence. “We didn’t talk to you two about it because it was something that was a long time coming. When we got married . . . it wasn’t because we were in love. We got married because of Danny.” He shook his head. “I mean . . . ”

Molly narrowed her eyes even further before interrupting.  “So you only married Mom because you knocked her up? Did you love her at all?”

“Of course I did.”

“You’re lying.”

Grantaire shook his head, and he looked for Eponine for assistance. Still, though, she seemed unsure of what to say, and she stared forward towards the ground. It looked like Grantaire was going to have to explain everything on his own. “We were friends, and Danny was an accident. We figured that we were good enough friends that being married to one another would be all right. We wanted Danny to have parents that stayed together and, once you two came along, we knew that we had made the right decision.” He sighed. “I loved your mother deeply, but I would be lying if I said that it was a romantic love. It was always purely platonic for the both of us . . . and for a long time, there was nothing wrong with just having that.”

Kieran seemed to come out of her trance at that, and this time it was her eyes that filled with fury. “Why did you two get divorced then?”

This question, Grantaire couldn’t answer, as it _was_ Eponine who had made the initial decision to end things. Eponine knew that, and she cleared her throat before sitting up straighter on the couch. She tried to catch her daughters’ eyes, but neither of them would look at her. She sighed before responding. “It was my idea to get a divorce. I wanted to go out there on my own, and see what else was out there for me. I will _never_ regret marrying your father, or bringing Danny of either of you into the world, but I just couldn’t do it anymore . . . all the pretending that there wasn’t more to my life that I desired just wasn’t working any longer. I had to do something, or I was going to end up regretting my decisions later on in my life.” She reached down to the hand that was still on her knee, and interlaced her fingers with Grantaire’s. “Your father wanted more, too, so we agreed that getting a divorce would be best for the both of us.”

 She coughed uncomfortably, her voice gaining a nervous edge as she continued speaking.  “But that wasn’t the only reason that we got divorced.” She looked at Grantaire, seeing if he was comfortable with their children knowing about her relationship, and about his sexuality. Grantaire nodded, figuring that if they were going to tell their daughters the truth, they needed to tell them the entirety of it, rather than just little bits and pieces.

The pause between Eponine looking at Grantaire and her actually speaking was taking too long for Molly, even though it only lasted a few seconds, and she jumped back in before Eponine even had the chance to open her mouth. “What more could you have to tell us? Do we have another sibling somewhere that you two have been hiding away from us? Are we secretly adopted?”

Eponine shook her head. “No, you don’t have another sibling, and neither of you are adopted. But . . . there is a man that I’m seeing.”

“And I’m gay.”

Molly looked irritated at her mother’s admission, but when she heard what Grantaire had to say, her eyes shot to him, and her mouth dropped. Kieran, too, looked shocked, but there was something hidden in her big gray eyes. Molly’s gaping mouth, her wide eyes, and the wheezy quality that her breath had taken on showed that she was much closer to panicking than Kieran was.

“You’re _what_?” she asked, shaking her head and rubbing the palm of her right hand against her jeans. “You’re gay? Since when?”

“Uhm . . . since I was fourteen.” Grantaire bit his lip. He pulled his legs up under himself, and immediately began to think about how easy it would be to simply tell Molly now, while she was already angry, about his feelings for Enjolras. He knew that she wouldn’t process it correctly, though, so he knew that he had to wait.

He looked at his daughters, trying to gauge their reactions to his admission. Kieran seemed to be too stunned to really respond, as she didn’t say anything else before getting off the couch, storming upstairs to her room, and slamming her door. Molly, however, stayed sitting down, and stared at her father, her eyes somehow even wider than they had been before. “ _What_? Since you were fourteen?” She shook her head. “No, that can’t be possible. How the hell did you end up knocking up mom, then, if you’ve known that you’re gay for that long?”

Grantaire tried to reach his free hand out and put it on Molly’s leg, but she flinched away and crossed her arms over her belly, her eyes hard enough to cut through diamonds. Grantaire nodded in resignation before saying, “I was having some trouble dealing with my feelings after my first boyfriend and I broke up, and I swore that I was never going to let myself get hurt by a man again. I tried dating women, but _that_ didn’t work out for me.  Your mom and I, though, we had been good friends, and there was a night that we had a little too much to drink, and . . . well, one thing led to another, and nine months later Danny was born.”

Molly let out a disgusted sound before exclaiming, “I can’t believe you.” She turned to her mother, disbelief shining in her eyes. “And you? How could you let him sleep with you if you were both drunk? Weren’t you always the one that lectured me about how drunken-consent isn’t really consent at all?” She shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut as she tried to process everything at once. “You have a boyfriend? Were you with him before you two got divorced? Is that why you told dad you wanted to end it?”

“Honey, I told you that wasn’t why we split up. We split up because we just couldn’t fake our relationship anymore. As for why we slept together . . . We both knew that we didn’t have to worry about emotions developing, so there wasn’t anything wrong, in our minds, with having a purely physical experience with one another.”

Molly clenched her hands into fists and stared at the floor, her cheeks flushing red in anger. “You’re both unbelievable. Mom, you got so pissed when I told you that I don’t know who Carlen’s father is, but you married Dad just because you two were friends and you were knocked up? That’d be like me marrying Enjolras.” She let out a huffed breath and pushed herself off the couch. “Screw the both of you. I’m not going to deal with this right now.”

Neither Eponine nor Grantaire tried to stop Molly as she turned on her heel and stormed out of the room, and out the front door. Grantaire simply let out a sigh and turned to Eponine, whose eyes had begun to sparkle with tears. He held his arms out, and she immediately moved forward to bury her head in Grantaire’s shoulder.

The worst part was over with, but Grantaire wasn’t sure if “up” was the direction that things were going to go.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

23

 

It took a while, but eventually, Enjolras was able to come to a decision about what he wanted to do. He walked slowly back to the house, chewing on his lower lip and wringing his hands.

He had barely made it up the driveway when Molly stormed past him, a look of pure fury on her face. She made it to the street before turning and fast-walking down the sidewalk towards the front of the neighborhood.

Enjolras watched her walk, his stomach dropping as he realized that Grantaire and Eponine must have told Kieran and her about their divorce. He wondered if she already knew about Grantaire’s desire to forge a relationship with him, or if that was yet another bombshell that was going to be dropped on her.

They couldn’t talk at all if he didn’t follow her, though, so he shook his head and took off after her. “Molly, wait up!” he called out, quickening his pace to a jog. He made sure that he was in line with her before grabbing her hand and pulling her to a stop.

Molly narrowed her eyes and tried to continue her escape from the house. Enjolras tightened his grip on her hand, forcing her to stay in place. Her eyes hardened further. “What do you want?” she ground out, leaning back on her heels.

Enjolras moved his hand so that their fingers were interlaced before dragging her over to the rental car. He led her around to the passenger side, opening the door and pushing her down into the seat before straightening up. “I’m going to go get the key and we’ll go somewhere else, okay? Stay here.”

Molly rolled her eyes, but buckled in, anyway. Enjolras shut the door and raced inside, keeping his eyes averted and his focus on the task at hand when Grantaire called out his name. He grabbed the spare set of keys from Danny's room, as well as his phone and his charger.

He walked straight past Grantaire without looking at him, and went out to the car. He stuck the key in the ignition and turned it on. He drove up the street and out of the neighborhood, trying to remember where the closest frozen yogurt place was.

He was so distracted trying to figure out locations that he barely even noticed that Molly hadn't spoken a single word until they pulled into the parking lot.

Enjolras looked over at Molly to see that there were silent tears running down her face, her cheeks still flushed in anger. Enjolras parked the car and unbuckled, quickly leaning over to pull Molly into a hug. He rubbed her back and stroked her hair, shushing her gently while she began to cry harder.

After several long minutes, Molly finally stopped crying, and she looked up at Enjolras with a sad, damp smile. “My parents got a divorce,” she whispered, reaching a finger up to wipe away her tears.

Enjolras nodded. “I know.” He got out of his side of the car and went around, opening Molly’s door and helping her make her way into the restaurant. He eased her into a booth and went to one of the machines, filling up one of the pre-measured bowls up with all of Molly’s favorite flavors before fixing his own. He added sprinkles and strawberry boba to the top of both before taking the containers up to the registers and paying.

Enjolras grabbed two spoons before taking the frozen yogurt back to the table and sitting down. Molly took the spoon and dipped it into her bowl. She twirled it around the chocolate yogurt and picked up some of the boba, a perplexed look on her face. She scooped up a pile and stuck it into her mouth, letting the yogurt melt onto her tongue. She swallowed before looking up at Enjolras. “Enjolras . . . did something happen between you and my dad this weekend?”

Enjolras felt panic surge through him, and he quickly shoved a large bite of his dessert into his mouth so that he wouldn’t have to answer right away. Molly raised an eyebrow at him and shook her head, looking back down at her frozen yogurt. “Well, I guess that answers that then,” she muttered, taking another bite of her own.

Enjolras swallowed and reached across the table to take Molly’s hand. “I didn’t mean for anything to happen, Molly, I promise. Your dad and me . . . he kissed me first, Molly.”

“Did it go any further than that?”

“I . . . ”

“Did. It.  Go. Further. Than. That.”

Enjolras sighed, and released Molly’s hand. “Yes, it did.” He glanced up to see that Molly had clenched her teeth, and that she was glaring across the room to the wall.

She nodded curtly. “Did you know that mom and him were divorced when you had sex with him?”

“Yes.”

Molly nodded again, closing her eyes and squeezing her right hand into a fist around her spoon.

For several long, tense minutes, neither Enjolras nor Molly said anything. Eventually, though, Enjolras couldn't take it any longer, and he whispered, “I'm in love with him, Mols.”

Molly didn't say anything. She opened her eyes and looked at Enjolras, trying to gauge whether or not he was being honest with her. She must not have been able to detect any lie on his face, because she pursed her lips and sighed. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“I can't believe I'm saying this,” she muttered, shaking her head, “but if my dad and you want to be in a relationship, you have my blessing.” She looked up at him. “I can't say that I'm happy about it, and I don't understand it, but . . . My parents deserve happiness, and if they aren't getting it from each other, I guess you're as good as anyone.”

Enjolras got up out of his chair and walked around to Molly. He hooked his hands under her arms and hoisted her up, pulling her into a hug, Carlen's feet bumping her belly into his. “Thank you,” he said softly into her ear, turning his head to kiss her on the cheek.

Molly nodded, but didn't say anything before pushing him off her and sitting back down to eat her frozen yogurt.

Enjolras watched her before sitting down and doing the same.

 

***

 

It was nearly sundown by the time that Enjolras and Molly returned to the house. After the frozen yogurt shop, they went and walked around a park that Enjolras had never seen before, and talked about how Molly felt about the whole situation, be it her shock and anger at her parents' divorce, or disgust at Enjolras having seen her father naked. Enjolras talked about his feelings for Grantaire, and apologized profusely for keeping it a secret for her.

Molly was already falling asleep when they got home, so Enjolras helped her up to her room and tucked her in, ignoring Eponine, Grantaire, and another man who were sitting in the living room as he passed.

Once Molly was covered up and snoozing contentedly, Enjolras crept back downstairs and looked over into the group, trying to decide if he'd be taking Grantaire from something important if he pulled him away to talk.

It appeared that the decision was out of Enjolras's hands. One of the stairs creaked under Enjolras's weight, and all three of the living room residents turned to see what made the sound.

When Grantaire saw that it was Enjolras, he let out a quiet sound before standing up, his eyes widening as he uttered Enjolras's name. He stood up, walked over, and took his hand, leading him out back toward the fire pit.

Enjolras started to talk, but Grantaire shook his head and put a finger to his lips to silence him.

“I want to start this fire, and then we'll talk, okay?” Grantaire pleaded, dropping his fingers from Enjolras's mouth and moving it down to grab Enjolras's hand, squeezing it lightly before running his thumb over Enjolras's wrist bone.

Enjolras nodded. Grantaire leaned in and pecked him on the lips before taking off towards the garage. He returned a few minutes later, a box of matches and two beers in his hands.

Enjolras watched Grantaire work, his heart full and dinosaurs dancing the conga in his belly. He was beginning to grow fearful that, even with Molly's blessing, and the brief kiss that Grantaire had just bestowed on him, that Grantaire didn’t want him anymore. If he had, he would have immediately said something, wouldn’t he? He wouldn’t want to wait until the fire was started to tell Enjolras that he still wanted to be with him.

Enjolras knew, though, that if he lost his chance, it would be entirely because of his anxiousness and his uncertainty that Molly would be able to accept them, and not from any fault of Grantaire's.  It would be hard, but Enjolras would lick his wounds and find a way to move on. He would suck it up and sleep on Andrew and Rory's couch, and he would find more interviews. He never heard back from the ones he had made earlier in the summer, but he'd try harder, and he'd find some way to make it work, even if it meant he had to take on a couple of part-time gigs for a little while.

Enjolras didn't notice that Grantaire had finished setting up the fire until he felt something cold and wet in his hand. He looked down to see that Grantaire had opened one of the beers and given it to him.

He glanced over to see that Grantaire was staring at him nervously, his beautiful visage showing him worrying his bottom lip in the firelight.

It didn't require any thought for Enjolras to launch himself the few feet that were separating them, and press his lips to Grantaire's hungrily.

Grantaire responded with just as much fervor, winding his arms around Enjolras's waist and pulling him close, breaking away from Enjolras's lips to suck possessively on his neck. “Say you'll be mine,” he muttered between sucks and licks, holding Enjolras tighter to him.

Enjolras nodded, his mind whirring with hormones and emotions as Grantaire moved up to capture his lips again, sliding a hand down the back of Enjolras's pants to rub his rear teasingly. The nervousness he had been feeling a few minutes prior flew away, and he was filled with joy.

It was only when Enjolras could feel Grantaire starting to get hard against him did he remember that they were supposed to be talking, and pulled away regretfully, reaching behind him and removing Grantaire's hand from his pants.

A downtrodden immediately came over Grantaire's face, and he bit his lip before looking down at the ground, crossing his arms and taking a step back. “Oh. I understand,” he whispered, starting to turn on his heel and walk back towards the house.

Enjolras quickly came to his senses, and he lunged forward, wrapping his hand around Grantaire's forearm and pulling him back to him. “Wait, Grantaire. That's not what I meant.” He pushed Grantaire down onto one of the chairs. He sat down on his lap and wrapped his arms around Grantaire's neck and leaned their foreheads together. “You said that we'd talk, and I want to do that. I want to see where we stand. What do you want from me?”

“I want everything,” Grantaire admitted, reaching up to run his fingers through Enjolras's hair. “I want to be able to call you mine, and have Carlen know you as my partner, not as her mother's best friend. I want everything that I dreamed about having with a man, when I was younger. Everything.”

Enjolras cupped Grantaire's jawline and leaned down to kiss him gently. “I want that, too.”

He sat back up, moving his arms so that he was hugging Grantaire tightly. Grantaire pressed his head to Enjolras's chest, and Enjolras rested his cheek atop Grantaire's hair, breathing in the scent that was so uniquely Grantaire.

Grantaire let out a happy sigh. “I could sit forever like this,” he said, sneaking one of his hands up the back of Enjolras's shirt and massaging lightly.

Enjolras, shivering at the feeling of cool fingers on his spine, had to agree that he could, too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Epilogue

_September 2, 2018_

 

“Come on, Enjolras, you're going to miss the whole thing!” Grantaire yelled, banging on the door to Molly's guest room.

“I'll be out in a minute!” Enjolras yelled back, rolling his eyes before resuming the task at hand. He moved his project to the center of the bed before going over to the dresser against the wall. He opened one of the drawers and stared in for a moment, trying to decide between the flimsy blue material, or the thicker green fleece.

 _The house is chilly today_ , Enjolras reminded himself, pulling out the green fleece and shutting the drawer. He went back over to the bed and sat down next to the diaper-clad infant, a soft smile on his face and his heart full. He leaned down and kissed the baby’s temple, his smile turning to a frown when he started to fuss.

“Shh, Daddy’s here,” Enjolras soothed, picking the baby up and cradling him to his chest, trying to keep him warm while he changed him. The baby, however, _still_ wasn’t warm enough, and let out a few more whimpers before letting out a wail. Enjolras moved him back to the bed and quickly pulled the soft long-sleeved, footed pajamas up and onto his body, fastening the snaps and holding him back to his chest.

Enjolras got off the bed and walked towards the door, humming a lullaby to his son as he made his way to Molly’s living room, where Carlen was opening her presents. He slid onto the couch next to Grantaire, passing him the once-again snoozing infant as he whispered, “Owen keeps getting cold, so you might want to put him in your sweater.”

Grantaire rolled his eyes. “I raised three children, Enjolras. I think I know how to keep our son warm.” Enjolras shrugged and looked back over to the front of the room, but from the corner of his eye, he could see Grantaire doing exactly as he suggested.

Carlen let out a loud squeal from the front of the room, pulling Enjolras's attention momentarily away from his own little family. He smiled at his goddaughter (granddaughter-in-law? No, that just made things too confusing) and winked at her as she opened her present from him, a large Barbie castle that had a moat and a drawbridge.

Owen hiccupped from Grantaire's chest, pulling Enjolras's attention back to him. Enjolras peaked down Grantaire's shirt, making a face at Owen and waggling his fingers at him. Owen giggled before falling asleep again, cuddling closer to Grantaire's chest.

Enjolras had thought that his life was complete when Grantaire and he got married a year and a half after they met, but when one of Enjolras's coworkers confided in him that her sister was a pregnant junkie and unfit to be a mother, Enjolras felt like it was fate playing a hand in his potential fatherhood.

Grantaire and he had made a mutual decision that three kids were more than enough, especially when Grantaire was already in his late-forties. The more that Enjolras's coworker talked about her sister as the months wore on, though, and the more she worried about how there hadn't been a match for anyone   
to take the baby, the more that it consumed all of Enjolras’s mind. He tried not to make it obvious to Grantaire that he was beginning to feel like he was missing out on something but, unsurprisingly, Grantaire picked up on it and hounded him until Enjolras admitted what was bothering him.

What _was_ surprising was how quickly Grantaire agreed to the adoption, and three months later, little Owen Camden Partridge-Cauthers was born.

Enjolras looked around the room, taking note of all the changes that had occurred over the last couple of years. Molly had graduated from University and moved back to St. Louis. Kieran was in her final year of high school and had _already_ secured a soccer scholarship to SLU for the following year. Eponine and Brent had gotten married, lived down the street from Enjolras and Grantaire, and had adopted a set of seven-year-old twins on their own. Unlike Grantaire, Eponine wanted more children, but she learned soon after Brent and her nuptials that she was no longer able to conceive, so adoption was the only logical choice.

Carlen finished opening up her presents, and the party began to move into the kitchen, where Molly had a large marbled sheet cake resting on the counter, already cut up into slices. For Carlen she had a smaller cake that was plain purple, and she put the candles on that.

Enjolras stayed behind while Grantaire and the rest of Molly's friends and family went in to see the birthday girl blow out her candles, and as he watched each member disappear through the molded archway, only one thought went through his head.

_I don't know how I got so lucky._

 


End file.
